The Lion and the Lamb
by Zenphoenixa
Summary: Squall Leonhart, Selphie Tilmitt - the two couldn't be more opposite in personality and appearance... but what if a disturbing new threat arose which could only be dealt with if these two mismatched SeeDs joined forces? Eventual Squalphie, PART 1 COMPLETE
1. Prologue: Yellow Huntress

NOTE: If you're here to primarily read the Squalfie and don't feel like reading the preliminary chapters which focus mostly on Selphie and Squall from individual angles, then I give you the choice to skip to the Part 1 summary before heading straight for Part 2 when the action officially kicks in. ^^

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Hey all, Zen here! ^.^ This is my first ever attempt at writing a public fan fiction, something which I otherwise wouldn't have done if I had never signed up to a FF8 role playing board to play the role of Selphie, (I'm not like her in real life, I can merely imitate her personality =P) set in a post-game storyline. The board died a long time ago, but I've managed to salvage the posts that I created and I shall now attempt to incorporate them into a brand new storyline… 

This fic will centre primarily around Squall and Selphie, because I'm fascinated to see how they might be paired together in the line of duty, and what similarities they might share – the other FF8 cast members might appear, but most will not be present for the first part of this story. To Rinoa fans out there, I apologise for omitting the relationship between her and Squall, because I don't trust myself to write impartially on a relationship which I have no real liking for. I might make references to it later however, though not at the present moment. The situations of all the ff8 characters will also eventually be explained.

Apologies if the story moves somewhat slowly at first, there are a couple of things that need to be teased out before the action fully begins…

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this! ^^ 

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**PROLOGUE - Yellow Huntress:**

To any onlooker or passer-by, the sight would have appeared to be.... unsettling. Perhaps even faintly amusing, but unsettling all the same. Bunched up against the elaborate framework of the quad entrance, trying to blend into the inscribed designs, the huntress awaited the approaching hunted, poised and as still as a sentinel golem.... albeit, a rather bright and yellow golem, but the huntress hadn't really paid much due attention to her attire. All that mattered was.... 

   Footsteps sounded against the slick tiled staircase beyond the quad entrance, resounding with an echo that sounded to her ears like the harbinger of everything she'd ever hoped for.... her cheeks flushed a rosy red as adrenaline sped through her veins with a thrilling surge, burning even more intensely through her flesh as the cooling atmosphere of the Garden blew across her heated skin, and then came the jarring click of heels as the prey proceeded to stride upon the level ground of the quad corridor, drawing ever closer to where she stood concealed and watchful. Watchful and waiting.... soon.... her knees bent into a stance as familiar as an age-old friend and as smoothly as sluicing water, arms flexing as the muscles bunched around blood and bone, eyes narrowing to two slit points, calves tensing for the final spring. The footsteps rang clear and true, so close that she fancied that she could almost touch them as tangible objects in the air before her. She steadied herself and balanced her weight evenly upon her toes at a perfect right angle to the doorway, coiling the tension in her legs to near breakpoint for maximum expulsion. An inky shadow suddenly lanced across the marble path.   
  
**_STRIKE!_**  
  
"Hi there! You know me right?? Well that isn't really fair is it, hee hee, you knowing me and me not knowing you and all that but that doesn't really matter does it?? You look real nice today, you know that? That hair is really really nice, it's a really nice look for you, true to Hyne and all that. So like, wanna help with the Garden Festival??? It's gonna be great!! Real fun and all that and....."

   The young SeeD novice darted past with reflexes that must have been perfected over a series of similar encounters from previous occasions, babbling incoherent excuses about crippling problems with ingrown toenails and raced away down the main corridor with a myriad of high pitched protests pitched at his back. In the space of a few seconds, he had vanished around the corner.

   "Fudge and fiddlesticks!!" Selphie stamped her booted heel against the marble tiles in frustration. Then something occurred to her. "HEY!! No running in the Garden!!" she cried after the intended catch, but by then he was already cowering in a foetal crouch in the corner with the fancy moulding in his designated dorm a good thirty metres away. With a sigh, Selphie picked at a random piece of fluff on the sole of her foot, disguising the disappointment that had wedged itself somewhere between her throat and her gut. Gathering cronies for the second Garden Festival this year was even tougher than the first - what was with everyone nowadays?? Sometimes, it seemed to Selphie that Squall's inclination towards the 'un-fun' side of living was an aspect that had been taken up with uncanny enthusiasm among the SeeDs of Balamb... she rolled her eyes towards the ceiling at the mere notion, and peeled herself away from her designated territorial ground to scope for better hunting luck within the vicinities of Balamb Garden, heels clacking loudly against the tiles as she swung into her bouncing gait... 

*** * ***

Phew! Prologue's outta the way… onto the big stuff now! More Selphie antics in the next chapter, so drink up the happiness before the second chapter hits you hard… O_-


	2. PART 1: Setback, Progress and Beginnings

'ello again… ^^ to Squall fans, I apologise for the initial emphasis on Selphie… Squall shall have the next chapter entirely to himself. ;) And so without further ado…

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**- PART ONE -**

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**CHAPTER 1 - Setback, progress and beginnings:**

Selphie's eyes darted from the glaringly bright monitor screen and back towards her paperwork, furiously striving to copy down the figures and small print that were collaborating in a successful effort to give her a greater head spin that what she was usually accustomed to. Her hand ached from the consistent writing and the inside of her head was protesting against the boring subject matter, but she'd suffered greater pains that that before. With a blip, the rest of the data that she'd been waiting for burst onto the screen in a flash of tiny digits and she hurriedly scanned the multiple lines, scribbling down what she saw…

   In conclusion, the Garden budget was tight this year, what with rebuilding to the Garden's mainframe and outer armour from the ugly business last year and the usual cost of upkeep; added to that were the multiple reparations demanded by Galbadia Garden contributing to the hefty sum... Selphie bit her lip as she glanced back at her planning page and then at her findings - the cost for a second Garden Festival would take a considerate chunk out of the money pile... she realised with a crooked grin that she hadn't even gotten the full go-ahead from Squall yet. Heck, he'd come around, wouldn't he? It wasn't as if he didn't know the meaning of fun!! Unless it hit him on the back of the head, Selphie suddenly realised gloomily.

   Her eyes flickered back towards the screen and what was on it, and a sudden queasy feeling lodged itself comfortably in the depths of her stomach. Well, no help from FH this year like the first time, that would have to be taken into account - no one had been victim to penny-pitching that time 'round. But this one was gonna be better - the best yet! 

   Selphie grabbed her clipboard from the side-desk with sudden energy and pored over the planning: Three musical numbers, a trivia pursuit, a talent quest, two more music acts, a goofy awards presentation and something that she figured everyone would take a liking to - a round robin of martial expertise! Refreshments, dancing, lights, maybe even a firework or two sneaked into the bundle... the perfect way to let off the tension from the past year. Selphie sighed, wondering why people lately seemed so hell-bent on doing their best impression of sour grapes. She could fix that, no prob... if only the whole operation could go ahead. Which meant gil. Lots of it. But she tried not to think about that aspect. Better to round up the committee first, which served to remind her…

  With the press of a button, the drive spat out the data disc, which she pocketed, and then quickly changed directories to the separate page branching from the Garden bulletin board that she'd devoted to Festival news and updates. A quick scanning revealed results that she'd been hoping would be better, but for the moment what was there was a start - approval for the Festival itself was up by eight percent from the fifteen a week ago, but no contenders for the committee so far.

   Selphie ground her teeth in annoyance - she'd been scoping for a near month already but her efforts had borne no fruit; it seemed like _nobody_ was willing to give up their spare time for a good cause! Non-surprisingly, she was aware of a sense of desperation that made her feel willing enough to even hire those cute plastic pot plants outside the dorms if need be... durn it, there had to be _some_ artistically driven folks out there..!! With a flash of renewed determination, Selphie scooped her paperwork up into her arms and stuffed it all into her satchel, whereupon hitching it upon her shoulder, she deftly exited the Garden panel and swiped her clipboard off the desk, pen in her free hand as she bounded out of room 2F, breezing past a bunch of gossiping Trepies and Card sharks to the elevator. _I WILL grab someone today, by hook or by crook... even if it's one of those plastic pot plants... Selphie incoming..!_

*** * ***

Her face screwed up in annoyance, Selphie nipped out of the elevator doors as they opened with a soft swish and skipped down the stairs onto the main Garden level, taking care not to slip on the polished surface. Of all the people to run into...!! She shook her head in disbelief at the notoriety of fate... especially when it played against her own deck of cards. She ignored the foyer and cantered down the left hand path, travelling about ten or so metres before realising that the scenery was zipping by a teensy bit too quickly and then followed the sheepish realisation that she wasn't being chased at all. As that thought was acknowledged, Selphie skittered to a halt and paused to get a bit of her second wind. The satchel on her back felt more heavy then how it had been when she'd left room 2F, but then again, maybe that was just the effect that Squall had on certain individuals... suddenly there seemed to be so much more weight on Selphie's slight shoulders. What was it that he said.....? Her mind darted back to the space of three or four minutes before the present time...

---------------------                                                           
_   "Cripes..!!" Selphie tittered as she almost ran full-tilt into the imposing figure in black before her - battle reflexes pulled her to the side in the nick of time, and anyway besides, she knew from past experience that ramming into Squall was a guaranteed way of earning a lollapalooza of a headache. She hopped on a single leg, regaining balance as the speed of her momentum threatened to overturn her._

_   "Going somewhere?" His voice cut through the air with a mocking edge, slightly frosty on the outer layer as always, like icing without the sugar. Selphie, having somewhat recovered from her initial surprise, looked up at his frowning face with all the innocence that she could muster in her arsenal.  
   "Ummm..... wanna join the committee???" _  
----------------------                                                                      

Selphie shrugged inwardly - hey, it sounded like the right thing to say at the time. What had followed next wasn't very pretty... well, for her situation anyway. She gritted her teeth again as a wave of chagrin washed through her - how had he known?? If only he'd found out _after_ she'd rounded enough of a posse to back her argument up... well, it didn't really matter anyway - Laguna's arrival had plugged up anything Squall had been intending to say on the Festival for some unprecedented point in the future, and she'd taken the opportunity to scarper.

   Selphie felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth - what on earth would bring Laguna to Balamb?? It'd been a long while since any of them had heard news of the cheerful president of Esthar, and he hadn't been too hot on the communications front himself, but Esthar was understandably a massive city to run even with the help of his buddies Kiros and Ward, and he probably didn't have time to indulge in social calls. Still, he _did_ have a responsibility as a father... hmmm. Selphie didn't want to think about that - it didn't involve her at all. It seemed unusual though that Laguna had made such an unexpected entrance, and with none of his advisors or entourage for company… he hadn't acknowledged her presence either, which set off a confused twinge in her stomach… but then again… there were other things to worry about - like the committee! 

   With a gleeful grin, Selphie hurried off down the corridor, all previous thoughts and worries having been efficiently trumped and dispelled - Squall hadn't said yes but he hadn't said no either. She'd take it as a yes for now! And if he said no later.... well, she'd burn that bridge when she got to it. Selphie had complete faith in her innocent little-girl charm and finely honed diplomatic skills, the result of the lengthy labour of love that had preceded her baptism of fire in the SeeD cauldron of Dollet…

   … or rather, her uncontested accomplishments in the arts of wheedling, crawling and incessant nagging. With a grin, Selphie knew that there was only so much Squall could hack for the sake of peace of mind…

   Pausing to stretch luxuriously towards the ceiling, Selphie pored through her mental schedule, silently ticking off what had been dealt with so far in the morning. Now what was there to do still...? The disc, Selphie abruptly recalled. Quistis had wanted it back... but where on earth was she?? Then there were fliers to stick, hunting, and staying clear of 2F until Squall had left the vicinity. No use in getting herself tangled in _that_ sort of trouble again... Quistis first. She usually lurked around the foyer, or out near the gates with the new recruits. With that thought in mind, Selphie turned tail and headed back down the corridor from whence she had come...

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Next in the frying pan – everyone's favourite commander… =P See you there!


	3. Shadow Sparring

Enter the Lion! Prepare for a lot of word exercise, Squall… XD

Bah, for some reason half of the italics in my chapter uploads are going down the dust chute… *grumble* -__-;; Parts in bold are where those italics were, in case you start wondering about the change in format! Ranting aside, carry on, dear reader! ^^

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**CHAPTER 2 - Shadow sparring:**

Normally, any manner of silence would not have fazed the stoic commander of Balamb Garden who might as well have written ten volumes on the topic, but the awkward silence that was ticking by with increasingly uncomfortable seconds was positively stifling, even for him. All previous thoughts of his lecturing of Selphie slipping away from his priorities, Squall struggled to hold the gaze of Laguna Loire, whose calm liquid eyes looked to be casually assessing the son who stood before him, waiting for him to speak. 

   _'The hell? Why is he turning up… now? No calls, no notification, no contact of any kind from Esthar for the past fortnight and now suddenly, the President just walks straight into Garden like a commoner off the street? Why didn't anyone tell me? Hasn't anyone seen him yet? Is this even a publicised visit? Hyne, I don't know how the hell he's made it this far without any commotion… what's going on?_

Jolting himself out of his erratic train of thought, Squall realised that too much time had passed for him to be able to cloak the undisguised shock that he had felt upon laying eyes on Laguna, seemingly materialising out of nowhere before the elevator of the Commander's office with a silence Squall couldn't quite believe possible of the highly talkative, energetic man. He looked more subdued than usual, the muscles tense around the neck and a vague twitch of a vein disturbing the peace of the smooth, flawless facial features. Mouth set in a firm line, eyes dark and unreadable with no hint of their usual warm humour.

   With a soft clearing of his throat, Squall rediscovered his means of speech. "Lagu…." he fumbled, then abruptly reconsidered. "Father," he worded slowly, as though still unfamiliar with an understanding of the syllables, "I'm sorry for not receiving you sooner, no one informed me of your visit, so forgive me for being… somewhat surprised. As it is, we might not have suitable accommodations for you and anyone else you might have brought, but we should be able to fix that up in short notice… Is there anyone else with you actually, or are you here alone?"

   He hated the way he sounded so stiff and formal, as though he were addressing any old Garden missionary or official from a careful rehearsed place card. He hated the way he was feeling, so torn up inside between the relief of seeing his father in the flesh again, the relief of discovering he even _had _a father…. And yet the distance between them was still as unbridged as ever; an unassailable yawning gulf called time had been forcing them apart upon contrary poles for so many years, and the damage…. It seemed to be irreversible, the situation so pointless and wasted… Squall felt a clutch at his stomach as prickling sensations of anger skipped through his veins and travelled towards his cheeks, making them burn with inner fire. He was angry, yes. Not at time, not at his father. Rather, he was angry at himself. 

_   You're a fool. But then again, you've always known that, haven't you? Couldn't take the bait… couldn't hook the initiative… what have you been trying to do to keep the flame alive? It's your own fault that your own father is still the stranger he was when you didn't even know he existed… maybe it would have been better if you'd never known. Maybe I hate him for telling me. Maybe I hate him for trying. It was too late for anything old man, why did you have to bother? Why… did Ellone have to bother? Dearest Hyne… it just doesn't make sense anymore… don't want to think about it. _

   Squall snapped out of his reverie as he realised that Laguna was finally speaking. 

"I've come alone," Laguna replied in an oddly cool voice. There was something hollow and toneless about the timbre of the words, as though the meaning and emotion behind them had shrivelled away even before being uttered. 

   Squall frowned in annoyance, not trying to feign what he was feeling and letting his emotions display themselves clearly upon his face. _No word of greeting? No hello? Nothing at all? What's stuck up his ass? It's like the past year never happened at all – is this what he wants? Or… am I responsible for making him like this…?_

   Previously lounging against the wood panelling of the walls of the Squall's office, Laguna suddenly tensed and straightened, his eyes seemingly not staring at Squall but through him. His arms uncrossed and fell to his sides, but his fingers remained bunched in viciously enclosed fists. 

   Immediately assuming the worst, Squall subconsciously took a step backwards, his forehead creased in puzzlement. "Father? What's…"

   "Where's Raine?" Laguna thundered, thoroughly cutting up the remnants of Squall's posed question. No longer still, Laguna surged forward with a soldier's steps, his features radiating nothing but malice and arms swinging menacingly in rhythm with his purposeful stride. Battle reflexes seized control of Squall's instincts, and he expertly leapt backwards out of striking range with one hand darting for the revolver strapped in its harness across his back. Contact. With a sluicing motion, Squall clenched his fingers around the solid leather handle and drew the revolver out of its sheath with a professional speedy action, the wicked edge of the polished blade catching a glancing beam of evening sunlight pouring in from the skylight above. Unfazed, Laguna was still advancing with no check in his movements, as though he had failed to acknowledge the young SeeD before him and the glinting vector of the Gunblade's point, behind which two foreboding barrels were aimed directly at the space between his eyes. Squall permitted himself time to blink, and that split second space of time witnessed Laguna's right hand whipping around his hip and swinging back to the front without a break in momentum, re-emerging gripping a thoroughly nasty looking sawn off shotgun, and the arm attached to the hand was rapidly raising the ugly chunk of metal at the human target poised in front of him with an accuracy too unsettling to be a jest… 

_   "Raine! Where the hell is she?!"_ Laguna's voice had erupted in a molten explosion of pure rage, his usually ivory cheeks flaring with two ferociously swelling spots of red. _"Ellone!!" _He waved the gun wildly from side to side as though emphasising a hidden point or unable to decide what target to choose, his index finger jammed dangerously against the trigger.

    "Laguna! Stop!" Squall yelled, half in fear, half in astonishment and with one hundred percent desperation. Half crouching in his familiar battle stance, he could feel the sweat trickling between the crevices of his fingers within the contained heat of his leather gloves where they were curled tightly around the revolver's solid handle, and against his own accord, Squall could feel his arms trembling as his heart threw its muscled walls against the solidness of his ribs in a hysterical frenzy. _He's mad. He's stark, raving mad! What.. am I supposed to do?! I have to stop him… before he starts shooting! No! How can I attack my own father..?! Do it! You fought matron to save yourself, what difference is there between then and now?! _

   In what felt like slow motion, like a movement being performed within the muggy resistance of deep water, Laguna extended his firing arm and looked down the barrel of the vicious weapon, lining it along an invisible itinerary with an eye that spoke of years of countless experience, and a fluid grace that alluded to the action having been repeated and perfected to the simplicity of drawing breath. His finger jerked down hard against the concave curve of the trigger with a lethal finality that seemed to signify… the end. Termination of the highest degree. Cessation, eradication and then some.

**BANG!**

The Gunblade bucked up with a violent motion as the tremendous kinetic energy of the blast sent shock waves reverberating through the weapon's complex inner frame. Squall leaned back with the explosion, absorbing some of the backlash and keeping a choking reign on the skittering weapon as it threatened to bounce around riotously in his grip. The twin bullets spun through the air with lethal velocity, accelerating along a tight narrow trajectory towards Laguna's furious face, intent on carving a destructive passage through the barrier of blood and bone barring their way, which would rip Laguna's features asunder… 

   … but instead passed straight through Laguna's form, materialising behind him and imbedding themselves in the mahogany framing the elevator entrance, crunching brutally into the toughened wood which warped inwardly with a protesting, splintering shriek followed by a storm of dust and debris. The clatter of broken, weeping wood upon the marble tiles was drowned out by the marrow-freezing blast of a raging shotgun whose voice was all it took to signify to any in the vicinity that it definitely meant business. With a final yell of defiance and not bothering to check where the gun had been aimed, Squall dove out of range and executed an impressive leap for the furthest end of the office which was interrupted by a dramatic log-roll across his desk, ploughing through a cluttering flurry of papers, files and stationary until he flew off the edge with a tumble and a thump. A shockingly loud 'ker-chank' signalled the reload and imminent second attack of a less than calm firearm not too far away – breathing hard, Squall braced himself, crouched behind the solid wall of wood that served as his working space, listening for any hint of advancement upon his makeshift barricade. Even from where the Gunblade's length was hovering in anticipation over the carpet, held pointedly away from Squall's body, the heat emanating from the charge of the first blast was wafting upwards in lazy currents from the pulsing weapon, stirring the scattered papers drooping forlornly over the desktop and filling the surrounding area with the pungent aroma of cooked copper. Squall irritably brushed the smell away, narrowing his attention to the paternal threat that couldn't have been more than three metres away.

   Curiously, nothing happened. 

Squall counted the seconds inwardly, timing them to the rhythm of his rapid breathing. Silence, previously chased unceremoniously away by explosive battle-fuelled chaos, proceeded to make a subtle re-entrance, sweeping her damming, blank cloak around the dormant action settling within the cavernous room. Ten seconds, then fifteen. Frowning, and with adrenaline still pumping steadily through his veins which was making him feel slightly light-headed, Squall ducked his head so that he was level with the small leg space hollowed through the middle of the desk. Blowing his wayward fringe out of his eyes, he peered cautiously out through the opening. 

   Crumpled in a dejected heap upon the plush woollen carpet, Laguna's hunched body rocked to and fro as he cradled his down-turned head in his hands. He seemed to be saying something… but his voice was smothered by the curtain of dark hair that had fallen in tangled clumps across his face. The man had so suddenly transformed from a snarling, spitting mercenary into a paragon of complete and utter despair… fingers splayed at torturous angles through his scalp, his back arched in what looked to be an almost painful rendition of an archer's bow… this couldn't be the same person.

   Squall blinked several times, as though trying to disperse his confusion through rapid eye-fire or at least attempting to dispel the astonishing display of mood change that was filling his vision to the brim. He could feel his thrashing heart starting to slow, his heated breath cooling as it passed between his gritted teeth. _…'the Hell…?_

   "Raine…" The soft moan was barely audible, but there was no mistaking _that _name. Squall's eyes clicked back to the front and he tensed, in lieu of another assault. None came. 

There was a pause, in which the vacant interval was filled with nothing but the gradually slowing breathing of the SeeD concealed behind the desk. Without the insistent roaring of blood thundering through his ears, concentrating had become less than a tedious task. Then Squall realised that a_… different_ sort of silence entered the picture, as though Laguna was… listening.

   "If she's… gone…" Laguna's voice had gained a newfound strength after his first unsuccessful attempts, but his words were still being strangled within his throat until they eventually fractured into unsalvageable shards of speechlessness. Suddenly, he wrenched his chin skyward, his glittering eyes seemingly focusing intently on something towering above his level of vision. Squall followed Laguna's gaze. There was nothing fascinating about the side lamp jutting out of the left office wall.

   "Where's Ellone?" Laguna croaked. "Where did those bastards take her…?" As though regaining some measure of his previous resolve, he pulled himself to his feet, swaying unsteadily as though weighed down with burdensome emotion. 

   "Hyne's ass," Squall cursed in whispered amazement as he suddenly registered cropped fragments of colour drifting in time with Laguna's movements, suspended with invisible threads as they swung away from their body of origin before rearranging themselves seamlessly in the empty slots left behind. The sagging figure of Laguna flickered momentarily, mouth still formulating speech, but uttering no measure of sound. For the first time in the duration of their encounter, it dawned with startling clarity on Squall that he could actually see the hazy outline of the elevator doors… directly through Laguna! It was as though he were looking through a murky panel of rapidly splitting stained glass, an experience which was heightened as Laguna's form suddenly jerked violently, as though in reaction to something unexpected, a movement which saw the image of Laguna buckle and flicker multiple times as though the energy generating the apparition had chosen to dip at an alarming rate. More flecks of colour were thrown from Laguna's thrashing form, sailing through the air in perfect arcs before struggling in a jarred flight back whence they came in a stubborn bid to keep the puzzle complete. Beneath the swimming colours, Laguna's features were still only barely recognisable but already beginning to blend into a mosaic of creamy black strands and soggy textured flesh. Muffled words… striving to escape the yawning, melting pot that remained in place of a mouth, squeezing out of the collapsing mushy pillar of neck and throat and leaking weakly into the air with the poor velocity of a near stagnant stream… 

   "Kirosss…. Ge..tt… _ovvv… _I'm nooot… crasssee…!" Like a bad recording, the words scratched themselves into bare comprehension just as the liquefying image of Laguna seemed to seize up catatonically. It hung suspended in the air for a fraction of time as though, with childish obstinacy, it still refused to release the hair-thin thread of control binding its components together… before finally submitting to its imminent implosion in a mute display of cut up colours and blaring light, gathering strength in the centre before expanding outwards in disorientating shower of slivered pieces of insubstantial glass. Squall hurriedly buried his face in the crook of his free arm as a soaring wave of effervescent light broke over him and every three-dimensional object in the room, staining the walls and floor with blankets of thick ebony shadows while a silent roar swept forwards in the backwash before just as suddenly as it had begun, the calamity was over. 

   Hesitantly, Squall raised his head and glanced around his surroundings. The intense light show had faded away into nothingness, taking the image of Laguna with it and leaving nothing but a bottomless barrel of questions, a soft bath of golden evening glow dripping through the encompassing windows…

   … and an increasingly burning swell of undeniable horror.

_I… I don't… believe this. _Squall felt his limbs stiffen as unbridled repulsion wrapped icy fingers of guilt around his frame. The Gunblade had suddenly taken on the weight of a two hundred kilogram dumbbell, and with a shudder, Squall permitted the now lukewarm weapon to slide from his leather-enclosed hand. He hardly noted the heavy thump as it plopped ungraciously into the dense mattress of carpet – all of Squall's senses had converged in one attacking body on the singular manifestation that at the moment was flashing through his muddled mind with the recklessness of a freight train…

   _I… I'd have… shot my own father. To save my worthless ass. Oh Hyne… Hyne Hyne Hyne… I… what type of bastard am I?! What's wrong with me?! 'Didn't try to even… _reason _with him for Hyne's sake…! One shot was all it took… that's all it takes… in a spur of the moment decision… _

Squall felt weak. Extremely weak. He was vaguely aware of his knees buckling from where they were tucked underneath him, mildly conscious of the bones in his feet cracking as his physical resistance crumbled and his body slumped backwards in a careless slouch. A pool of burning panic was scrabbling with frantic claws against the walls of his stomach while his voice of Reasoning clamoured to be heard over the high pitched shrieks of his provoked Conscience.

   **It wasn't him. It wasn't him, alright?! Hyne knows what the hell that thing was, probably someone's idea of a sick trick… I'll gut the bastard responsible… **

   Squall closed his eyes, squeezing them together tightly to block out the burning sensation building up behind them that could only signal one thing. He never cried. He didn't want to start now. Especially over some… some lame-ass apparition. Swallowing the rising lump in his throat, he rubbed his temples, trying to alleviate the throbbing that was threatening to spill over into a crippling headache, trying to rub away the filthy grime of guilt…  

**   It was wrong. A mistake. I'm perfectly aware of that. I only struck to save myself. Just like anyone would in my place. I want to survive. Doesn't everyone?**

   Continuing to massage his temples, Squall concentrated on calming his shallow breathing, watching the fluttering rise and fall of his chest through the damp material of his undershirt.

   **He wasn't real. **

   Heart still thrashing like a raging beast, hurling itself within the confines of its bony cage… 

   **Which means…**

Drying sweat caking his cheeks and lower arms, a glimmer of rational thought suddenly intercepted the duo of gloom and doom pounding a messy path through Squall's swirling insides.

   **… we get a second chance.**

Squall froze momentarily as he chewed on that thought. Reasoning continued to speak in a matter-of-fact fashion, and he made no move to stop it.

   **How many people can say that they get a second chance? Are you going to make use of it, or squander the opportunity away? **

   Rationality chose that moment to sweep Reasoning aside with a heavy, frosty hand.

**First – find who did this. Not anybody could just put those names in Laguna's mouth. Who have you told? Nobody… except… for the others But… but why would any of them choose to pull such a sick gag? And would any of them be capable of conjuring such an image? It doesn't seem right – there's definitely the stink of a rat in this. And there'll be hell to pay, Hyne help me.**

   Squall felt his inner turmoil beginning to settle at last as his usual cold disparity returned to energise his logical, calculating thoughts. This was the self that he was familiar with… Aloof, detached, uncaring. He could only hope for trouble to arise if he dared to stray from this Rational core… the ugly business of the past ten or so minutes had claimed proof of that. **You acted on impulse. Where was your head at? You're not Zell, you're not hot-headed. All this administration has stuffed you up bad… 'best to start training again or you'll lose your touch for good. As leader, that's something you can't afford…**

   With an internal nod of affirmation, Squall levered himself heavily off the floor, gripping the edge of his desk for support as his legs wobbled unsteadily from lack of movement. He turned his ash brown gaze to the mess that greeted him upon him straightening, and the corners of his arched lips arranged themselves into a scowl of disapproval. The surface of his working area was in complete disarray, something that would have to be dealt with soon if upcoming dead lines and commitments were to be met punctually. Squall felt his mood sour at the very thought.

   **Squall Leonhart… commander, headmaster, leader. Who would have thought? Is this the life you always expected? Is this your one true call to duty? **

   The unanswerable questions tumbled in a leap-frog fashion through Squall's head as he made an effort to gather the dog-eared sheets of paper scattered across the smooth wooden surface into a manageable pile.

   **Never given a choice in the matter.**

The frown that Squall always sported upon his face as a second skin deepened. He snatched blindly at the nearest document, beyond caring if he happened to crease the expensive parchment, and flicked it onto his growing pile.

   **It just doesn't feel right, does it?**

"Shut up," Squall muttered on impulse, then caught hold of himself. **Talking to little inner voices… that just really sweetens your whole mental makeup by a couple of notches.**

   The paper pile slammed onto the desktop with an abrupt 'thomp' which echoed along the dormant air currents filling the room, guided in its descent by an overly heavy and forceful leather hand. Picking up his Gunblade in mid-stride and sliding it back into its holster, Squall breezed out of his office with an irate and frosty air, cutting a more imposing figure of inapproachability than usual in his black garments and wild, upturned ruffed collar of fur… swirling, stormy eyes focused intently ahead, swimming with curious inner anger. The office doors slammed purposely shut behind the SeeD, the turn of a key in the lock bearing likeness to an abrupt ending of an offensive conversation, accompanied by an angry chorus of clashing belts and the clomping of heeled boots on polished marble fading in the distance. 

*** * ***  

Confused? Don't be, all shall be explained in due time… O_- (trust me!) I've gotta say though, this is a challenging task… I hope I'm getting some portion of Squall's character across correctly… =P Coming up next: back to Selphie we go!


	4. Storm's Prelude

Selphie's otherwise ordinary day is about to take a disturbing little twist… read on. O_-

****

**CHAPTER 3 – Storm's Prelude:  **

Whistling a random tune that was circulating through her head, Selphie pushed through the exit gates to emerge in the brightly lit exterior of the front section of the Garden. She paused for a fraction on the topmost step, letting her eyes slowly roam.

  
_Now where on my dear Granny's grave could Quistis be..._ she pondered, idly twirling the data disc between her thumb and index finger. Selphie stood motionless for several moments at the top of the flight of stairs, simply enjoying the feel of the cool, moist breeze blowing inland from the direction of Balamb on her heated cheeks. It was one of the scant times that day that she'd actually ceased moving - but with Selphie, staying stationary for long was like blue grass sprouting on the sea. As she skipped down the stairs with some of her old energy, she noted that the light in the sky was starting ever so slightly to fade; telltale streaks of purple cloud were already staining the heavens and the sun was throwing strong golden hues onto the pavement. As if reading Selphie's mind, a garden light flickered into life at the corner of her vision followed by three more.  
_Better make this quick...._ she thought, and trotted further down the path to the open courtyard where she'd first been briefed as a true SeeD. It startled her that it seemed so long ago and yet it had only been about a year since she'd stood solemnly in that spot near the rails... _stick to the subject…_ she chided herself, shaking her head clear of her daydreaming.

   In the early evening, the traffic trickling into the Garden was meagre as adventuring SeeDs returned home from whatever business they'd been executing on the outskirts of the Garden. Selphie carefully scrutinised the passing faces as they came, but Quistis was not among those that she saw. It wasn't long before no SeeDs were walking through the gates, and Selphie found herself with nothing to speak for her patience but an empty courtyard.  
  


   "Fudge," she muttered, "Back to the drawing board I go..." She unstuck herself from her reclining pose on the railing and gave one last glance towards the now closed gates, turning to leave.

   She'd been so absorbed in concentrating on the passing crowd that it was only now with sudden realisation that she noticed how the weather had changed so suddenly – broiling storm clouds overhead had somehow migrated from the outer reaches of the nearby sea, so incredibly dark, ominous and heavily weighted with rain. A faint rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, and the breeze was laden with moisture that clung with damp fingers onto the bare skin of Selphie's arms. The flickering garden lights threw the path snaking back towards the safety of the Garden into a murky half-light, doing little to ward off the thick blanket of darkness creeping over the structure and surrounding lands. The wind chose to dip its oar in to add to the collective sinister effect being created by the weather, by picking up a chilling momentum that whistled through the upper arches of the courtyard with an eerie howl. _Creepy... _Selphie winced uncomfortably. _But after time compression, I doubt anything could freak me out anymore..._

  
**CRASH!!**

   Selphie yelped in terror as one of the Garden gates swung open with a resonating bang, a sound that struck against her eardrums with unexpected, painful intensity. She had had little time to recover from the first shock when another one presented itself to her - someone, or something, had stumbled through the entrance.

**Curfew's nearly in place… no SeeD in their right mind would be heading back this late at night…**

Selphie took evasive action - she snatched at a broken stick from the ground within her reach, probably a cast off from some unfortunate tree, and slipped into a battle stance, advancing upon the figure with mincing steps, hoping that surprise was going to act favourably on her part. The branch was rough and terribly unweighted in her grasp, a far cry from the smooth, lightly balanced deadliness of her beloved Shinobou but she could dish out damage with the lump of wood if the situation called for it. She shifted it from left to right, quickly trying to determine whether a one-handed blow would be possible over a double-hand... if possible, she wanted to be able to switch side stances in the possibility of combat, much in the same gadfly familiarity that she was used to with the Shinobou. Only a few more steps was all that was needed now to get the target within her strike perimeter...

*** * ***

To be continued shortly! I won't keep you hanging… ;)


	5. First Blood

Ah, word exercise, gotta love it! XD *Rubs hands in glee* Thankyou to all who have taken the time to review this story so far, I really do appreciate it. ^^ Thankyou also to anonymous reviewers, since I can't personally reply to you through e-mail – it doesn't mean that I'm not grateful! ;)

As a little note before kicking off, the following chapter contains reference to names that don't slot into the ff8 world we know, precisely because I made them up on the spot… =P these characters are only quick disposables to help out with the plot and to build up some part of Selphie's past (as imagined by me…), unless people are curious about having some of the story dedicated to explaining their status, to which I will most probably oblige later, time willing. =P

So then… what awaits Selphie in this chapter? A loooooot of running around and pain… sorry girl, but now it's your turn after Squall! ^.^;;;  

**CHAPTER 4 – First blood:**

"_Clarendyce_… get those… Juniors out of… _ughh_…"

The words sprinkled with undisguisable pain drifted Selphie's way, by some blind luck not being entirely swept aside by the increasing howling of the overhead wind and also fortunately before Selphie had had a chance to set up a strike. It hardly mattered anyway – Selphie found herself cemented to the spot, as though her heels had chosen that exact moment to bury their roots into the ground directly underneath her. Eyes widening with rising shock, she felt less surprised than if someone had just sunk a fist into her abdomen, or launched a hefty brick to the side of her head.

   _Clarendyce…! That… name! But… b-but I thought you were…_

The figure that had stuttered the sentence and magicked the frighteningly familiar name from the deep recesses of Selphie's memory appeared prostate on the cold hard ground, seemingly not sparked with life, twitching faintly. With some apprehension, Selphie approached the form which embodied all characteristics of lifelessness, fingers still curled around her make-shift weapon, still struggling to comprehend what she now only half thought she had heard. A gnawing curiosity was eating away at Selphie's inner gut as she stood over the sprawled heap inches away from her feet. The garden lights provided only a meagre amount of light to see by; her eyes noted the sheathed weapon by the figure's side and the reflected sheen of dark, seemingly black, messed-up hair. An arm protruded from beneath the person's bulk, and even the darkness clouding Selphie's vision couldn't disguise the apparent ugly wound scarring the limb. "Hey.... you don't look too good actually...." Selphie said nervously. A skimmed glance over the rest of the figure's bulk revealed the unmistakeable sticky gloss of drying blood soaking into ragged material that might have once been classified as clothing…

   A clap of thunder resounded through the Heavens, making Selphie start and interrupting her observations, while a few telltale drops of rain spattered upon her head. The storm was up and coming and she knew that she couldn't afford to leave the stranger out in the raw; what if he? she? was close to...to death?? From far away, another ominous rumbling of thunder approached as though agreeing with her fearful thoughts.  
   "Hey.... hey?? Can you hear me?? Can you walk? I can take you to the infirmary but I can't carry you, help me out here!" Selphie urged, ducking down to the figure's level and lifting a hand to touch their shoulder… but then a blast of wind brought an explosion of droplets crashing against Selphie's face as the storm suddenly announced its arrival with a dramatic roar, pushing her backwards from where she rested on the base of her toes and she shrieked in protest as the chilling spray bled instantaneously into her hair, dress and open eyes. Momentarily blinded and keeled over the concrete with rainwater sluicing over her uncovered limbs, Selphie's keen ears suddenly picked up on what sounded like a second voice calling through the storm, the words faint and ethereal in substance yet at the same time as clear as a tolling bell…

   "Marty! Shandra! Stick together!" 

   _!!!_

"Oh _Hyne_!" Selphie cursed in agitated exclamation and half shouting in her astonishment, for she couldn't quite swallow what it was that she had just heard… or rather, _who _it was that she had just heard…! Coughing away the rainwater that had strayed into her mouth during her initial instinct to gape, Selphie raised her head in time to acknowledge the arrival of three insubstantial forms through the open gate as they cut a weaving passage through the pounding rain, one tall and slender and banked on either side by a small, miserable looking, blob.

   "Stop crying! We're at the front gate! It's going to be oka…a.. Shit! Marty…! _Marty!! Come back!!"_

Selphie yelled in surprise as one of those fore-mentioned blobs broke away from its posse, its scuttling dash heralded by the sound of light weighted heels hacking at the ground upon contact with the hard crumbling stone… the figure closed the distance separating it and a thoroughly comatose Selphie with remarkable speed that could only have been boosted by the razor sharp edges of desperate emotion. As she stared intently at the racing figure, the features of a young boy aged anywhere between eight and twelve flickered into the realm of visibility, eyes lit from within with a raging fire of overwhelming trauma and panic and garbed in attire which was the undoubtedly clear-cut uniform of a SeeD junior. There was no time for Selphie to properly digest the details – the Junior didn't seem to have seen Selphie at all, eyes locked firmly at some unspecified point behind her, and was on the verge of a nasty fall on account of an unwitting human speed hump. Selphie pushed herself off her palms, stretching out her arms in a bid to halt the terror flight of the oblivious Junior, but the child, if even gathering some portion of indication of Selphie's person, made no effort so slow his wild flight and barrelled into Selphie's open arms without any check on his speed…   
   … and with one graceful motion akin to that of a bounding dance step, passed straight through her form as though she wasn't there at all, exploding into wayward fragments of fractured colour which gave the impression of being fastened to invisible string by just as suddenly re-arranging their pieces into their previous boy-child state on the opposite side of the soaked, yellow clad SeeD. A clatter of leather soles, and the boy disappeared down the Garden path, his speed unfazed by the minor obstacle that had attempted to bar his reckless retreat.

   Unfortunately, Selphie was less unfazed, unblinking even as water pooled painfully in the lower alcove of her lids… unable to stir from her outstretched pose for a few moments while the rain continued to beat upon her with a force that would have been capable of knocking smaller statures flat upon the ground. 

   **What. The. HELL… was that.**

   _?!!_

"Marty!! _MARTY!! _It's dangerous in there!! _Come back!!_" A terrified voice raised in a roar echoed around the empty air, accentuated by an accompaniment of thunderous percussion from behind the clouds that sounded fully capable of splitting the weeping sky in two. Heavy footfalls, a tinkle of belts, the scraping of heels and the rubbing of coarse cloth… two smoky coloured figures beating up the pavement with their speedy movements, the taller practically dragging the smaller through the swimming path in a madcap flight. Selphie jolted herself out of her dumbfounded daze and whirled her head around in time to catch the rapidly fleeing shapes plunging into the foggy curtain of rain and mist clogging the courtyard behind her. 

   "H-hey! Wait! C-Clarendyce!" Selphie hollered hesitantly, and then with a portion of renewed vigour, but the figures had already slipped out of range of earshot. Without waiting for any further reply, Selphie leapt back on her feet with the agility of a wild cat, a cloak of collected rain water cascading down from her shoulders and scattering themselves to the screaming winds. 

   _If that's who I think it is… things are simply getting WAY too weird to be laughed at… _

Selphie surged her feet forward into a break-neck sprint.

   _I have to know._

Kicking up puddles of run-off and dirty water as her booted heels crashed into the flooding path, Selphie was barely aware of the flecks of mud spraying onto her thoroughly drenched sun dress and bare calves. In between the chaotic jumble of thoughts, disorientation and questions cluttering her frantic mind, Selphie somehow fleetingly found a scrap of energy to spare for wondering if there had ever been a time when she'd felt more soaked to the bone..... her hair had flattened itself in a weighted mass across her forehead and was plastered against her eyelids, rainwater trickled like the cold, roaming fingers of a nightmare down the base of her neck and rivulets were carving icy tracks between the valley of her shoulder blades… The scenery was flashing by like a stretch of silk-screen dyed with a messy assortment of greys, greens and blues… Selphie felt her teeth chattering with each bounce of her stomping stride, while her heart battered away against the ridges of her rib cage to the grinding rhythm of her ragged breath and the soaring blood in the space between her ears. Through the gloom, Selphie registered the approaching murky shape of the stairs, rising like a mocking, towering challenge for her already wearied, battered body. She snatched for the closest railing and hauled herself up the slippery, dribbling steps, shoving her weight upwards against the burning protests of the constricting muscles within her legs. In the distance, as though she was being rewarded for her efforts, came the same faint calls which she was pursuing. The words, although blown apart by the snarling gale, could not be fully deprived of their frantic pitch… Selphie hauled herself up the final steps and, legs reduced to the consistency of eggs done rare, raced towards the source with nervous expectation and an extra boost of speed dredged from the reserves of her final drams of energy.

   _"_Marty… please… it's too late… I-I'm so sorry…" the voice cracked with a punctuated sob. 

   "M-Marty…? Come out… I'm s-scared…" Childish, girlish, whimper… 

Selphie slowed at last, struggling to reel a substantial amount of air into her fluctuating lungs without inhaling a gallon of rainwater in the process. Not taking her eyes off the huddled figures bunched near the base of the final stairs paving the way to the Garden administration, she advanced upon them with carefully placed steps, as though fearing that any sudden movements would effectively startle them away from the plane of the living…

   "… Clarrie?" Selphie ventured wonderingly. Her tongue curled around the pet name with heart breaking familiarity… and without wishing it, Selphie felt a painful tug seize hold of her inner emotions which were currently threatening to spill forth from a puncture in her chest in bucket-load proportions.

   Clarendyce didn't seem to hear her. The young female Junior in her embrace clutched at her shoulders with an iron grip, evidently infected with the first stirrings of hysteria.

   "Clarrie… it's me, Selp…" 

   "Marty!!" 

Her words of introduction knocked cleanly out of the air, Selphie followed the vector of Clarendyce's gaze to the top of the stairs, and could only just make out the hazy outline of the Junior boy standing on the last few steps, illuminated from behind by the glaring burn of electrical orbs lighting the path to the Garden doors.

   _Wait a sec! _Selphie blinked the water away from her weary eyes, squinting hard to deduce whether she was merely suffering from a case of temporary vision impairment… but what she had crucially noticed about the image of Marty did not change.

   _I… I can see through him… _Selphie felt her mouth parting in astonishment as she continued to stare, but as the seconds passed, she knew that it was no trick of the light, rain or mind – the Junior was clearly transparent, his features having taken on the consistency of weak, strained milk as the back light pierced through every inch of his body with a variety of angles and intensity. 

   _A… a ghost?! _Selphie could feel herself shaking her head in denial, yet at the same time her feet had adopted an independence of their own and were dragging her physically and emotionally exhausted body towards the apparitions, rather than further away… 

   "Marty, please… the roof…" 

Clarendyce extracted herself from the female Junior long enough for her to stretch an imploring arm towards Marty, who was still yet to remove himself from his elevated concrete perch. The Junior's chin was tucked tightly against his chest, efficiently concealing the expression plastered against his face. It was not enough to disguise the fact that his shoulders were trembling with tiny spasms of movement, as though he were choking back a torrent of tears with mammoth resolve. Scraps of glowing indigo colour broke away from his vibrating frame, the exact shade of the trimmings lining his long sleeved uniform…

   "Please don't run. There's no one else there. She's not there anymore, Marty. She's… g-gone… outside. She's waiting for you outside." Clarendyce's tone was coaxing, but the tremors intertwining her words were bluntly baring her lies. "You have to come away from there…"

   "I won't! You suck! Milla's not gone!" Marty lifted his head, his boyish voice harsh and frayed around the edges with the force of his scream and eyes flashing with pain and defiance. "You suck! _I hate you_!" 

   The sharp, raw words swept through the air and bit into Selphie with the hurtful force of a stinging slap, even though they had not been directed towards her – though she could certainly sympathise. From between her lowered eyelids, her gaze focused on the translucent pair crouching fearfully before her upright form. Near enough to touch. Close enough for comfort. Selphie's heart felt as close to splintering as it was ever going to get, her eyes drinking in the sight of the one SeeD woman that she had never expected to encounter roaming the land of the living ever again. She soberly ticked off the list of all too familiar features – those painfully distinctive almond eyes endowed with the rich cerulean hue of blooming cornflowers… eyes that had been so readily sparked into vivacious animation with the simple gift of laughter… sun streaked chestnut hair pulled back in a primly knotted bun, loose strands stirring in a gentle waltz against the high cheekbones of a lively, oval face… there was simply no mistaking the late Clarendyce who had taken up residence in the Trabia Garden of old.

   Selphie slowly lowered herself to her knees in a semi-crouch until her face was level with the trembling SeeD, seized with a powerful wonderment. The swirling rivers racing through the cracks between the pavement stones could be clearly seen through the lucid strands of coloured light wound tightly together in the SeeD-shaped tapestry displayed before Selphie… the strands pulsed mildly in reaction to the disturbance of the pelting rainwater piercing through the image to get through to the ground below, the strands on closer inspection appearing to be constituted of a million different fibres, each containing a miniscule, illuminated spectrum of its very own. The apparition was in all senses an intangible powerhouse of immense generated energy, each line of power interwoven to create the tight semblance of a fully uniformed and outfitted SeeD novice…

   "Clarrie? Are you really a ghost?" Selphie said quietly through the rain, though not really expecting a response. None came. It hardly mattered – Selphie could already answer her posed question, and it did nothing to rectify the situation. A brilliant flash of lightning arced through the boiling black clouds overhead, rendering the apparitions insubstantial for a split second as the world was coated with blue and white light.

   **There's no doubt about it – up close, I can finally tell… this whole she-bang reeks of magic. My channels are going haywire, they're definitely picking up a reaction… cripes, it's making my skin crawl like nothing else… I've always been able to pick up magical energies more easily than the others, but I… this feels strange. I don't know why it feels strange… 'cause at the same time, there's something familiar about it too, like this isn't the first time I've encountered magic like this… fudge, I just don't know what it all means. Like… W-why… Clarrie…? I mean… in her form…?! And… and Marty too? This is getting way too much… dunno how long I can hold out before… before I just… break down and cry all over again…**

   "The roof!! **Marty! Run!!"**

"Fudge!" Selphie squawked in surprise, throwing herself back on her heels as the image of Clarendyce abruptly pitched forward with unprecedented violence. On her feet in an almost immediate instance, the apparition bolted up the stairs with rapid leaps and bounds in a wake of flaking remnants of colourful light drifting through the rain like glowing confetti. Selphie, having already been knocked back twice in the course of ten or so minutes, recovered with admirable quickness for anyone in her situation and instinctively followed after, rattling urgently up the saturated steps and bursting over the peak of the staircase in a theatrical, broken cloud of flying raindrops, eyes tracking wildly until th…

   The ensuing blast had nothing to do with thunder, and indeed no relevancy at all to the still-raging storm. Selphie wasn't even certain whether the blast had made any manner of impact upon the physical sound waves, for the shuddering, bone shattering sensation that was booming deafeningly within the caverns of her ears felt too unworldly, overwhelming and insanely excruciating to have been whipped up by any old human inspired explosion on the over world. Selphie's lips widened in the shape of a silent gasp as the noise refused to cease, pealing over and over again in a continuous rerun of the explosion's climax… the devastating clamour beat solidly against her inner organs, cleaving roughly through her shivering bones with a soiled and unsharpened edge, ferociously trying to hurl through the fleshy barrier of skin coating her limbs to escape into the atmosphere outside but it was impossible, so hard…!! So loud…. So loud..!!Soloud!! Soloud!soloud!soloud!**soloudloudloud……**

   **!!!!!**

   **PAIN!!**

A crimson veil of stupefaction filmed over Selphie's wide-eyed stare as her senses seized up with the crushing force of blazing acoustic agony, the core of the sensation building up from the recesses of her abdomen and expanding outwards with multiple, serrated wings into every internal niche of her delicate body. She was unaware of whether she was screaming; the noise echoing through the interior of her ears permitted no acknowledgement of exterior sound. Selphie was consciously aware of her back arching in retort to the torturous sensations scoring a scalding path down the entire length of her spine… consciously aware of her body tilting and then tipping backwards uncontrollably into the vacant embrace of open space. She felt like a vessel of flaming wreckage, lit from within and growing increasingly weightless as the inner fire threatened to reduce her to nothing but an empty, blackened husk… a crunch, and a vague flicker of physical sensation. Another similar crunch, and the world was turning itself over in a blended sphere of driving rain, weeping heavens and running stones… drone-like, Selphie closed her eyes as she spun and rolled down a seemingly endless descent, and then abruptly felt the breath knocked out of her lungs as a very solid force smashed into her body with the overkill expected of a pounding jackhammer biting into a chunk of talc.

   Silence, save the rhythm of rain slamming upon rock and hardened dirt.

   **… ****voices****…? **

   **From somewhere… far away…**

   **???**

   **…h-help…**

   **…………**

**    …?**

**    … colours…?**

**   It's… raining colours…**

A face, blurred around the edges, hovering above her form… dressed in familiar apparel…

Selphie's eyes rolled around in her sockets in a daze as she attempted, and failed, to focus. 

   **… can't… you see… the colours…?**

She closed her eyes, absorbed in nothing else but the peacefully floating drops of fractured spectrum oozing lazily down the black walls of her unconsciousness.

*** * ***

To be cont'd! (Duh) ^.~ I must sound like I'm having PMS or something, all these different mood swings in the chapters… @__o;;; I assure you that's not the case…! XD

Coming up next: the outcome to this little drama, more of Squall and the introduction of our favourite instructor, Quistis… 


	6. First Fears

Back to Squall we go! This chapter however is mostly written from the view of Quistis, who'll also be doing most of the thinking in this section… the following events by the way are taking place during Selphie's little adventure out in the rain. Anyway, enjoy this next instalment, and a very big thankyou again to all who have reviewed so far, you guys and gals are this story's oxygen. ^_^ 

**CHAPTER 5 – First Fears:**

****

   "Well?"

A stray bang of grey-streaked strands slipped across his down-turned brow, brushing against the inner gully of a fading slash indented within otherwise flawless flesh before being impatiently smoothed away. His steel capped boot tapped edgily against the tiles, voicing his unspoken agitation.

   "Squall…"

"Yes? What?" The clipped reply cut through the air without any previous sanding along the edges, and the golden haired receiver noticeably cringed at the Commander's rather dull-pointed bluntness. She decided to phrase herself more… _gently_, this time.

   "I keep telling you, but you're just not registering. I try to reason, and you keep pushing. Here's my final verdict, Commander Blockhead – I can't sense anything. _At. All_. Read my lips! Feel my Braille! Sequel now impending!" Quistis drove her attack home as firmly as she dared, adopting a tone that anyone else besides her or possibly the estranged Seifer would have found positively mortifying if aimed at the stoic, unblinking pillar of foreboding remoteness that was Squall Leonhart. As it was, Quistis was perfectly aware of her previous student's stubborn streak, running through his bearing like a stream of unyielding granite, and she also knew that the only way to take to this imposing geographical feature was with a solid round of verbal jackhammers. 

   _Obviously not solid enough that time, _Quistis thought wryly as she noted Squall's deepening frown, evidently still reluctant as ever to submit to his vice-Commander's ruling. "Are you…"

   "…sure? Squall, we've been through this conversation enough times in the past couple of minutes… I thought you would have reached that blatant conclusion the third time through," Quistis sighed wearily, uncrossing her arms from where they rested against her breasts. "I'm sorry, but I just can't sense anything in here – no magic, no underlying presence, no signature… this room is completely bare to my senses."

   Squall scowled in reply, keeping his swirling eyes trained upon the floor to mask some of the pent up frustration that was threatening to fly on a heated course towards the adamant, but otherwise innocent, Quistis Trepe. She didn't follow up her words with anything further, patiently waiting for Squall to gather his thoughts together in what she knew would be a mulish onslaught of denials, claims and the added bonus of a quaint slice of colourful language.

   _And it begins… _Quistis rolled her eyes skywards in the hope of having invoked the pity of Heaven's deities as Squall pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against, and strode purposively past Quistis to position himself in the centre of his office. She rotated her body to follow his movements, noting that he was still struggling with an internal glitch that was impairing his ability to formulate coherent speech. 

   "I'm telling you Quistis, the illusion was…" Squall finally blurted out.

   "… 'right here, shooting wildly'. I know, you told me."

   Squall narrowed his eyes, deciding to try again. "It…"

   "… 'imploded, raining multiple drops of magic.' I know, you told me that part too."

"Hyne's ass, stop doing that!" Squall's snap-frozen demeanour cracked ever so slightly as he involuntarily spouted a geyser of steam from below the ice, eyes narrowed into two accusing points and his voice raised higher than it usually rated on the Leonhart sound meter.

   "Swear Jar, Squall," Quistis ordered coolly and matter-of-factedly, gesturing with her retainer.                        

The already highly irate Commander whirled upon his clearly unruffled opponent and hit her solidly with a bubbling melted-molten glare that would have been capable of peeling less staunch individuals like flaking paint. "Quistis, I don't think you're taking this very seriously."

   "Don't make me come over there and spank you," was her placid reply. 

Squall paused, continuing to blast Quistis with volleys moulded from the searing white core of his innermost resentment, but she extinguished his broiling glare with a contrary arctic sweep of her glacial, cobalt tinted eyes with a nullifying effect akin to that of a pail of cold water sloshing over an angry, but essentially petty, flame. There was little doubt in Squall's mind that Quistis was not bluffing. 

   Squall violently broke eye contact with a snapping turn of his head, his lips pressed together in a very tight line. With one last passing glance informing Quistis that she was treading on _extremely _dangerous footing, he marched with as much shredded dignity that he could glean towards the display cabinet beside the window, upon which a large glass jar was positioned, and which was presently half full with a gleaming hoard of glittering gil.

   "I'm not calling you a liar," Quistis continued smoothly, as though the brief confrontation had never occurred. The corners of her bow shaped lips twitched ever so slightly with amusement, her eyes attentively drinking in the spectacle of the glowering, stiff-lipped Commander as he was reduced to fumbling around ungracefully in his pockets for elusive spare change. Composing herself, she continued. "But as it is, the simple fact of the matter is that I can't affirm anything that you've just told me. I don't doubt that magic was involved – most certainly, I'd say. But if there were any traces of magic at all in the first place, they've either been masked, swept away or… simply weren't there at all. Not that I believe that last option of course," Quistis said quickly, as Squall froze in mid-search and fixed her with a warning frown, hands still buried in his back pockets.

   Quistis picked at a long slender fingernail as she thumbed through her internal body of knowledge. "Para-magic can only be identified and assessed using Para-magic techniques, or in other words, like produces like and hence like is only open to detection by like… hence we're definitely not contending with Para-magic here if beginner, intermediate and advanced Para-magic Scan spells can't pick up on the magical residue left behind by the spell that was used…"

   She was interrupted out of her voiced ponderings by the angry clash and clatter of bouncing coins as Squall seethingly flung a handful of gil into the eager, open mouth of the jar. "That's what's so unusual about this whole situation, Quistis," he said, sounding somewhat restrained as he turned to face her again. "You claim that you can't pick up on the traces using any method at your disposal… but how does that explain the fact that _I _can, right here, right now, even without junctioning or spell casting?"

   Quistis scooped a stray lock of honey tresses away from her cheekbone, tucking the loose ends behind the rounded curve of her ear lobe. "That I can't explain as easily…," she admitted with a defeated shrug. "If only Rinoa were here… this type of magic wouldn't escape a Sorceress's detection…" Quistis mulled over absent-mindedly. With an air of chagrin, Squall turned away to stare morosely out of the uncovered window, his jaw clenching painfully at the mention of that achingly familiar name. The storm had blown in only a few minutes ago, and splotches of rain were flinging themselves at the gleaming glass with a censored hammering which easily filled the looming silence. 

   Quistis rubbed her forehead in embarrassment, realising what it was that she had just said. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, "I know that's still a sore spot." A light powdering of a blush gathered upon her arched cheeks, unseen by the frowning Commander whose face had also started to burn, though set alight by a completely different, anger-based fuel. 

   A tense handful of seconds ticked away, punctuated only by the relentless drumming of raindrops.

"Before you go about sinking your head in the sand as per usual, I've just thought of something plausible," Quistis said suddenly, trying to force their minds back to the topic at hand. Squall inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement, trying to disguise the heated crimson betraying his angry emotions, the corner of his one visible eye focused on the musing woman behind him. He felt a reluctant twinge of grudged appreciation for his former instructor as the graceful sweep of her form bunched slightly at the hourglass waist, her upper body hunched as she concentrated on some internal monologue being related to her by the constant chattering of her keen intellect. In the smart attire of her official SeeD uniform and with a pair of clear-framed glasses resting on the bridge of her elegantly tapered nose, Quistis had the manifest bearing of one who fully knew that she was a valuable asset to the Garden administration staff, and looked to be every bit the part of the regal Garden vice-Commander that she was…

   _… or Commander. She's obviously more suited to the job then you ever could or would be. I wonder why the Faculty didn't think the same, when they stripped her of her Instructor rank? The up-start bastards. Huh. Don't let her catch you saying that. By Hyne, when did I ever let her get so much control over me? She's like a disciplining mother nowadays… and hell, that's embarrassing. _

"Remember the Dream World?" Quistis cut straight to the point. "The nature of the illusion that you described bears some sort of resemblance to what we experienced last year, with some certain exceptions of course – last year, Ellone's junctioning of our minds into figures of the past was selective, since Rinoa never got to see what the rest of us did in the same manner that I now can't pick up on what _you_ saw, since Ellone could only 'connect' to people she knew. If Ellone is involved however, I don't know how it is I can't pick up on the magic residue since she was well acquainted with me… we'll probably need to think that one through. Secondly, the illusion you described sounds as though it has some sort of bearing in the past, which definitely points towards the involvement of Ellone all over again, but why didn't you lose consciousness and get transplanted into the illusion like we all did whenever Ellone exercised her powers? My prescription? Let's get on the line to Esthar." 

   Quistis dispatched this unbroken discourse in one instantaneous clap of breath, much like the lightning crack lunge of the whips that she was so fond of training with. Squall finally fully turned, the metallic fire in his eyes subdued, having given way to a newfound sense of enquiry, and his cheeks restored to their usual pale pallor with the timely suppression of his scarred emotions. _There'll be time to fight those later…_

   "Ellone? You think she's responsible for this?" He felt like re-affirming the thought for some reason, even though the notion seemed perfectly conceivable to his mind. _Why didn't I think of it sooner? It seems so damn obvious now that I think about it…_

   Quistis drew back a little, once more crossing her arms over her abdomen in a guarded pose. "Of course I can't be entirely sure on that, I'm merely going by assumption," she confessed. "Really though, the call is yours – speaking of which, don't you find it somewhat… unusual that we haven't heard anything out of Esthar for at least a good fortnight? I could've sworn we departed on friendly terms…"

   "They wanted to retain their reclusive nature, Quistis," Squall explained, his eyes already straying to the communication panel sitting upon his desk as he pronounced the words, "And we agreed to respect that decision, for the sake of protecting Ellone's secret, the possible re-harnessing of Lunatic Pandora and any other military technologies developed by Esthar that could spell disaster for the world outside the city..." Even before he had completed that sentence, Squall found himself crossing the room in ignorant contradiction of his words and halted in front of the user panel of his intercom. Quistis said nothing, an understanding smile gracing her docile facial features.

   With one hand resting characteristically among the multiple belts adorning his hip, Squall prodded the first button on the panel and waited. 

   "_Commander_?" A questioning, tinny voice blossomed from the speaker of the machine, the sound quality crackling slightly with static caused no doubt by interference from the storm. 

   "Xu," Squall rejoined, "Get me the Esthar Presidential Palace."

_   "Roger, Commander. Standby for transmission…" _Xu's voice withdrew and the intercom went dead. Squall counted the seconds by as Xu went about fulfilling the request… at the six second mark, the intercom blared back into life. 

   _"Commander, Esthar's central communication line is failing to connect… they could be experiencing technical problems, upgrading, or the signal could be disrupted by the storm on our end. Do you want me to continue trying to establish a connection?"_

Squall rubbed his forehead as he paused to think. "Xu, doesn't the Presidential Palace have three alternate communication lines? The connection codes should be listed on the records in your office – test each one of them and report back with results, please."

   _"Roger."_

"Hang on – wait. If none of those lines connect, then I want you to try contacting any of the major or minor establishments in Esthar to determine the city's overall current state of accessibility. It's imperative that we initiate a link between Garden and Esthar tonight, or as soon as possible… I trust you're up to the task?"

   "_Affirmative, Commander. I'm on it." _The intercom blacked out, and Squall diverted his attention away from the panel until further notice.

   "So… the central line itself is down?" Quistis deliberated from the back of the room. "That's highly unorthodox for a city on the advanced modern scale like Esthar."

   "And we last used the line approximately two weeks ago without any technical problems," Squall added, his face turned away from Quistis as he resumed his gazing out of the weeping window at the enveloping sash of night. "They'd have had plenty of time to pull their act together if anything had gone wrong between here and then."

   "Foul play then, do you think?" Quistis decided to speak both of their fears out loud rather than beating around the bush, but then again, she had never been one to mince her words. "I'm not all that eager with jumping to conclusions so brashly, but too many things linked to Esthar seem to be occurring in something more than just a coincidental sequence of events, don't you think?"

   Squall did not reply, considering whether or not he had even heard the posed question in the first place. His arms crossed in soldier-like fashion in the small of his back, his figure had taken on the appearance of an ebony and ivory sculpture, and like such an inanimate sculpture, was equally as mute and cold. 

   Quistis noted Squall's lapse back into his usual introverted self with a subtle lift of a delicately shaped eyebrow, but she hadn't instructed the young Commander for years on end without learning something on the art of reading his silent footed emotions. The wrinkling of leather folds between the neck and collar of his fur rimmed jacket – the result of a near unnoticeable swell of tensing shoulders – told a familiar story of inward worries, while the finely boned fingers of his interlocked hands had paled for lack of circulation, so tightly were they being twisted together. A rigid stance, body locked into stiffness from an almost certain knot radiating out of a stomach that was no doubt churning in turmoil. 

   "Squall, I know you're worried about Ellone," Quistis said quietly, trying to speak on behalf of Squall's fears. "And I know that you're also worried about Laguna. Just try to remember that we're all SeeDs here, and it's our calling to make sure order is kept throughout the world, no matter what town, city or continent… and this will be no exception, if there's any initial basis for us to worry. For all we know, we could be just overreacting and…"

   Quistis' words were abruptly thrown out of orbit as the intercom chose to sputter back into life amidst a worsening storm of cloudy static.

   "_Commander?"_

Squall seemed to stir slightly from his feasting upon his private anxieties and troubled thoughts, but still did not shift himself from his designated position before the drenched window pane. "Any luck?"

   _"Negative, sir. All Presidential lines are down, and connection with any manner of Esthar industrial or domestic sectors draws a blank… if I could speak frankly sir, it seems to me that the entire city seems to have undergone a mass communication blackout despite the diplomatic terms and conditions mutually signed between Esthar and Balamb Garden…"_

Squall gradually let out the breath that he had been holding and slowly closed his eyes.

A nervous hush descended upon the rain beaten room, in which no one dared to speak for several moments as the news was slowly chewed and savoured. Quistis bit her lower lip, not really knowing what was an appropriate way to react.

_   "Permission to try again, Commander?" _

Squall shook his head, a gesture directed more at his personal decisions than in reply to Xu's offer. "No Xu, that'll be all for tonight. Thankyou for your efforts."

   _"No problem, Commander." _The intercom then tactfully settled back into dormancy. 

Squall still hadn't budged, and seemed to be sinking even deeper into the depths of aloofness at a rate that would be considered far from healthy by any life counsellor, or at least by any concerned staff member, as Quistis certainly was. Knowing Squall however, she judged her chances of successfully dragging him out of his personal quagmire of despondency at this point in time as relatively low in probability – the infection that was eating into Squall's persona in response to the lack of certainty of what was happening in Esthar had already split cells in multitudes of millions… there was little use in trying to snap Squall out of his congealing soup of gloomy stupor. He'd swim back to the surface for air in his own time. 

   "Squall, it's getting pretty late and there isn't much we can discuss now without a good night's rest. We could call a conference among the administrative body tomorrow to tackle the problem head on…" Quistis trailed off, watching as her words bounced clean off the broad expense of leather clad back barring access to the person she suspected was still lurking on the other side… shaking her golden head and abandoning the rest of her unspoken words, she gathered her coat off the wall hook and pivoted towards the elevator. Courtesy however compelled her to hesitate momentarily in the office doorway, and to direct a curt formality over her shoulder back into the bleak atmosphere of the office. "Good night Squall. I'll talk to you in the morning."

   Silence, ever the Commander's trustworthy envoy, was left to intercede and charged with passing on the message. Without a backwards glance or any further words, Quistis departed from the Commander's frigid kingdom of self-emersion and stepped into the waiting elevator, pulling her arms through her suede coat sleeves as a safeguard against the unwelcome chill that would no doubt accompany her on her walk towards the dorms. As the elevator doors slid to a close, Quistis could still see the distant portrait of a man shrouded in black death and miserable contemplations, standing stock still before a window wet with the stain of a thousand blotchy tears, before the doors met firmly in the middle and wiped the image away from the slate of Quistis' vision.

*** * ***

Yes, I've always considered Quistis to have an upper hand over Squall that is never really looked at in the game… =P it seems reasonable, since she's been his authority figure for such a long time! ;) Anyway, as you can see, some of the confusing bits are now starting to be explained, and the next chapter shall deal with the issue of magic a little bit more. And the inspiration for the Swear Jar? Blame it on the movie 'Crackerjack'. XD

Coming up: How has Selphie fared from her rather spooky encounter? Wait and see for thou shalt find out! ^^ 


	7. Eye of the Storm

G'day all, welcome to the next chapter! ^_^ Back to Selphie we go, in the longest chapter so far… @_o;; *gets a head spin from too much typing* A very big thankyou again to those who have reviewed and to those who are following the story! ^___^ Also, grateful thanks to CTHSKI for pointing out how Rinoa might be able to detect the magic while Quistis could not… I've modified the previous chapter to explain this. ;) 

And so without further ado…

**CHAPTER 6 – Eye of the storm:**

**Contact.**

_:Selphie…?:_

**_???_**

_:You… can hear me… can't you…?:_

**_……?_**

**_…yes._**

**_……?_**

**_…who are you…?_**__

_:You… don't know…?:_

_:……:_

_:I'm… sorry… I can't… tell you now… they're too near… they might… hear…:_

_……_

_:I… have to go… I'll… try to keep… you safe from… them…:_

**_'Them'…? What's going on…? _**

_:I'm sorry… I can't say yet… they're coming… must go…:_

**End of Contact.**

*** * ***

"Are we awake now, then?"

   The voice sounded achingly close to Selphie's ear, jolting her out of the syrupy black soup of half-slumber like a fish breaking through water. Her eyes instinctively flipped open in reaction to her body's gradual awareness of its wakefulness, her two orbs of darkening jade suddenly contracting as they shied away from the unexpected strength of the light fitting blaring down upon them from the white plastered ceiling.

   "Steady now… no fast moves yet, okay?" 

Selphie nodded before more tentatively opening her eyes again. The pastel coloured walls were the first to come into focus, followed by the impeccably starched coat enclosing the stocky figure of one very concerned looking Doctor Kadowaki, a furrowed line in her forehead matching the sympathetic curl of her lips. The warmth in those casual hazel eyes remained staunch regardless of the doctor's emotions, lightly crinkled in the corners with smile lines and the inevitable onset of middle age. Her bark coloured hair was only just starting to unravel from its bun wound high on the rounded peak of her head. 

   Blinking owlishly, Selphie suddenly found herself set upon by a barrage of warring senses struggling for the privilege of being first in line to be acknowledged by her sleep-groggy muscle of grey matter… the sterilised aroma of the Garden surgery drifted into her flaring nostrils before being batted aside by the scratchy texture of alien clothing prickling against her soggy skin, followed by a fast ball of muggy warmth floating around her being from the infirmary's humming heater… finally, it was the turn of the insistent but muted pattering of rainfall hurling against the glass pane of the window behind her head, the mournful moan of wind occasionally rattling the otherwise firm panelling in unbridled frustration, like an exiled ghoul.

   Doctor Kadowaki crossed the floor to Selphie's bedside with unhurried steps, stethoscope swinging from either ear. "Here now, show me your back." 

   Selphie obediently obliged, shuffling her seated weight to the left, tangling her folded legs in the crisp folds of the infirmary quilt as it drooped from where it had been wrapped around her slender shoulders. The cotton shift she had awoken to find herself clothed in was rather thin, and even with the heater chugging its toasty breath around the tiny room, there was still a sharp, damp chill crawling restlessly beneath her water-congested skin that could not be warmed away so easily… Selphie suddenly drew a hissed intake of breath as the icy kiss of the stethoscope headpiece planted itself between the indentations of her shoulder blades. "Just relax..... breathe normally. Can you cough for me? Good, good...."

   Selphie resisted the urge to squirm and pull away as the wintry metal prowled slowly across the stretch of her exposed back – the feeling reminded her too much of the chilly paranoia that had often accompanied her during the escapades of the previous year... Ultimecia's castle, grim and frightening all over again. A spasm chose to rack her body at that moment, but it was from the cold, not from fear. She was numb when it came to fear.   
   "That'll do for now," Dr Kadowaki finally conceded, lifting her icy instrument away from Selphie's knotted muscles. Selphie gratefully gathered the fallen quilt in her fingers and pulled the fabric tightly around her shivering frame. Heavy wool, she noted, the fibres tickling the lining of her nose. It smelt faintly medicinal, surprisingly rather comforting. Dr Kadowaki crossed the surgery to a tray lined up against the wall, setting her stethoscope down carefully among the other tools littered upon the surface.

   "It's not really any of my business," the doctor suddenly spoke, not lifting her gaze from the tray as she absent-mindedly shifted the various objects into more pleasing personal arrangements, "But you really must pardon my wondering what on earth an elite SeeD was doing gallavanting in the first big storm of the year five minutes before curfew with absolutely nothing in the way of an umbrella." The doctor turned, a mild smile sculpting her lips. "That was a pretty big fall you took, you know."

   "… fall?" Selphie repeated then frowned, finding that her voice sounded somewhat half-cooked in her throat. She coughed experimentally, trying to coax her speech towards attaining full boil.

   "Down the stairs," Doctor Kadowaki affirmed. "The faculty were out and about closing up – 'heard your screaming, one of them said, and the rest is history." Her voice had remained relatively neutral as she relayed the facts, but now adopted an air of serious puzzlement. "Let me just say that you're a medical wonder, my girl – how on earth you managed to survive that five metre fall with no more than a bit of bruising is something pretty far fetched, wouldn't you agree? Hell, you're more flexible than I gave you credit for…" a soft chuckle, and a wondering shake of the head. "Are you sure you don't feel pain anywhere?"

   Selphie blinked, then ran a quick mental check to be sure. "No… um, I… feel fine…" she said slowly and with a stretch of each syllable, as though expecting something to occur in between the words to prove her verdict wrong. Personally, she was just as dumbfounded as the doctor was, and like the doctor, she was doing a surprisingly good job at masking it. Still unconvinced by her miraculous diagnosis, she poked her arms through a gap between the blanket and turned the limbs this way and that, trying to catch a glimmer of a gash, or maybe even the sneaky onset of the excruciating floppiness of a fractured bone, but she felt so healthy that it felt… positively _un_healthy. A mild patch of bruising staining the skin behind the crook of her left arm was the only telltale sign of injury that Selphie could detect in her first self-inspection, and apart from that minor blemish, the rest of her arms and hands were immaculately barren of any manner of nicks or breaks.

   _I fell… I am absolutely, positively, booyakingly certain I fell! Down stairs no less, Hyne dammit! I should've been brained to next Tuesday!_

"You're looking mighty perplexed," Doctor Kadowaki observed, not bothering to conceal the laugh from her voice. 

   "Oh hell yeah," Selphie agreed loudly, still staring wide-eyed at her white washed arms. "What… what do you think happened?"

   The doctor shifted herself more comfortably against the wallpaper beside the door, arms crossed against her clean white chest as she thought about the question. "Magic, might you agree?" she ventured, tilting her head to one side. "I'm not certain from where, but nothing else explains this situation best… Maybe you could figure it out better than this old fogey."

   With a hidden start, Selphie suddenly remembered… the apparitions, the ensuing blast… 

   _Of course there was magic involved in this… it was there right from the very start! That explosion was conjured… or something like that, I'm not really sure what to call it… one thing's for sure, it was definitely synthetic… not something that was generated from natural energies, like most external energies we get from the draw points. Think back to the early classes…_

* * *

A cool autumn breeze filtered through the slender crack permitted by the otherwise closed panel of clear window glass, weaving a lazy path across the sleepy heads of a dozen slouching and lounging SeeD hopefuls. The gentle drone of the softly spoken instructor pacing the low stage at the front of the brightly lit classroom sounded for all the world like the subtle humming of insect wings, otherwise as harmless as a curious fly but almost just as irritatingly incessant…

   "As future SeeD mercenaries, you shall be trained shortly in the use of the energies your betters refer to as Para-magic to aid you in the line of duty, and which are to only be strictly used in ways which preserves your person, benefits others or in other miscellaneous situations that are dealt with in more detail in your SeeD handbook…"

   The petite, delicately built girl hunched over her study panel in the furthest corner of the room stifled a rather deep yawn and sighed softly, her glazed emerald eyes brushing hopefully over the numbers displayed in the digital clock installed conveniently in her desk. _2:09. _Still a good fifty minutes to go…

   "… Para-magic is constituted by the varying categories of energies that are generated within nature, such as the energies that fuel wild monsters and energies which can be found contained within natural stones, minerals and resources. Due to the research conducted by the famed Doctor Odine of Esthar city on the abilities of Sorceresses, it is now possible for individuals such as yourselves to be trained in the art of harnessing these external energies for anything ranging from offensive and defensive combat to healing…"   

Another yawn, but deeper this time… and obvious enough to be detected even through a slight covering of the mouth.

   The droning abruptly broke off, leaving a gaping silence in its wake. "Ms. Selphie Tilmitt? Is this lecture by any chance boring you?"

   Eleven heads suddenly stirred long enough out of their dozing stupor to swivel in synchronised motion to focus on the startled SeeD novice hidden in the corner, who by now had quickly straightened and hurled her spacey consciousness back into the world of the awake. Recovering her composure with a resilience most would label as astounding, Selphie met the instructor's unsmiling impression of a puckered prune with a brave impish grin and shook her head vigorously, causing her wild brown wings of hair to bounce against her ears.

   "No ma'am, not at all! Everything's a-okay and going your way!" A perpetually blinding set of pearly whites flashed into life within her animated face with the suddenness of a switched-on light bulb.

   The instructor raised a curious eyebrow, swallowing Selphie's overly perky manner with some considerable difficulty, if her sudden loss for words was any indication… the instructor could almost feel Selphie's exclusive brand of sugar eating straight into the core of her teeth enamel. The SeeD novice continued to fix her with that confident, innocent smile, apparently unperturbed and transformed into a glowing exemplification of the highest order of student dedication… All that Selphie was missing was her harp and halo. 

   "Well… that's good. That's good to know." The instructor recovered feebly and prudently retracted her claws, still rather unsure of what to make of this… unusually _happy_ student. _It'd probably be best to suss this one out to see whether she can really cut it... what's the likes of her doing in a military institution like this? 'Probably won't last too long… we'll let her fall out in due time._  

   A few seconds of silence throbbed through the air before the mild drone of the instructor's voice once more resumed to drift pointlessly into half-receptive ears, and a sense of normality once more dropped over the composure of the room as the brief interruption faded from memory.

   Selphie finally permitted her strained smile to fall slack at the corners of her mouth and resumed her lazy slouch against the uncomfortable solidness of the steel-enforced student bench. _Whew! Any longer and the wind might've changed for good…_

A flicker of movement on the previously dormant screen of her study panel suddenly snagged Selphie's slipping attention, and she yanked the closing hoods of her eyes back open as she leaned forward to investigate. A message box had materialised in the corner of the screen, and a string of words were rapidly filling the rectangular space provided.

   _Incoming_ _message from: Clarrie_hunny (ID No.5690912)_

_Hey, good save Selph! ^^ Stupid old #$%!, you're not the only one she's putting to sleep… -__-;; *zzzzz* u going to the courts after? Squads A and B are playing, come cheer with me k? Laterz. ^^_

* * *     

Selphie snapped herself out of the momentary flashback before it could get any further into dangerous territory. Some things just weren't… appropriate to be remembered at the moment. She forcibly steered her thoughts back to the original questions she had posed for herself… 

_   Para-magic… the energies that we've been taught to draw and handle from early novice training… but I remember… they were always telling us that we don't self-generate that type of energy, we've only been taught to mould and siphon it from objects or monsters… huh. What's the deal with all this stuff then? That could mean the blast was artificially created from an internal source, like… like a human, I guess? Maybe. I don't know. If it's even possible, I mean. I guess it's not impossible…_

Selphie frowned, inwardly and outwardly. 

_Bah, who are you kidding? Fess up girl – all this time, you never thought that anyone else could do what you can do with magic, but now it's starting to look like you're being proven wrong after all this time… I've always been able to tap into my own internal energies to fuel personal magical attacks and spells during emergencies… it was something that got me recruited as a Seed in the first place. It's something similar I share with… with all things, a Sorceress… but nowhere near as strong, absolutely nowhere as near. My powers are like a slowly dripping leak compared to them! But that blast and apparitions weren't Sorceress fuelled power… hmmm. I think. I don't know… there was something so darn familiar about the feel of it… but at the same time it was so alien! Almost like a… a combination of elements? Is that how to describe it? The magic didn't feel whole… more like a mix of magic, but none of it being Para-magic. Geez, I'm confusing myself. I guess all I can assume right now is that someone or something out there was responsible… But… heck to Hyne, what I don't get is why anyone or anything would practically push me down the stairs… only to break my fall??_

"Any answers yet? I can all but hear those cogs moving."

Selphie pursed her lips, her face screwing up with the effort of editing through all of the separate filmstrips within her reels of thought. "Maaaaaybe…." she began, but then decided to think better of it, knowing that it would only muddle her listener and eventually muddle herself. Selphie shrugged in defeat, and pulled her mouth into a lopsided smile accompanied by an exasperated roll of her eyes. "Okay fine, I admit I'm just as clueless. Some elite SeeD I am!" She rounded off the self-criticism with an exaggerated wail.

   "Good to see you're not too proud to admit it," Doctor Kadowaki said graciously, levering herself off the wall and sticking her hands in her coat pockets. "One thing's for sure, things just haven't been boring in here ever since Squall took over… how well he is really looking after you lot? Letting his Elite just go falling down stairs, tsk tsk…" The doctor suddenly turned Selphie's way, her face lit up with a new thought. "Silly me, I didn't even take the liberty of calling on one of your team mates… do you want me to page Squall for you? Or Quistis, maybe? They'd probably be worried. Well, Quistis anyway," she added with an afterthought and a wink. "Who knows, you might get a day of leave by doing your best act as an invalid, if you get my drift that is…"

   "Doc!" Selphie blurted out in amazement, but she couldn't help but laugh despite her attempt to harness a reasonably stern, rebuking tone. "You're supposed to be setting a working example for the young, you know. Is that what you say to everyone who calls in sick?"

   "Now that's purely classified information," Doctor Kadowaki smirked, without missing a beat. "Seriously though, I could give them a call if you want."

   Thinking that a little bit of sympathy for her plight mightn't do any harm and would probably help to raise her sunken mood, Selphie was about to give the go ahead… when a mental kick to the upside of her head suddenly conveniently reminded her that she was supposed to be _avoiding _Squall, not drawing attention to herself and her Festival schemes! The chaos of the evening had almost been intense enough to make her drop her guard… but by the hairs on the skin of her teeth, she quickly swallowed the 'yes' that had been gathering on the tip of her tongue with a less than subtle gulp, and instead settled for a brief shake of her head. "Thanks doc, but I'll be right and fine – I'll let them know what happened later without all the gory details…" Selphie exhaled a silent sigh of relief. _Geez Loiuse, just nearly go and blow it all, why don't you? Silly duffer – 'good to see you're still thinking straight…_

   The doctor yielded to Selphie's decision without dispute, having not noticed the slightly guilty expression flitting across her sheepish face like a stray shadow. "Well, now that we've got all that settled, do you feel like camping in here for the night or heading back for your dorm? I can't be sure whether you'll suffer from any relapse, but really, it all depends on how you're feeling."

   Warm as she was, snuggled in the woolly security of the infirmary quilt and already feeling quite comfortable and at ease in her propped up position upon the bed, Selphie judged the likeliness of herself getting a decent night's sleep in a different bed as relatively close to nil.

   _And after what's just gone down, I need as much down time as possible from reality._

Reluctantly pulling herself free from the hugging folds of the blanket, Selphie shook her head in response to the offer. "Thanks for the thought doc, but I think I'll be able to get a better nod-off in my dorm tonight…" shivering slightly in the thin fabric of the infirmary shift, Selphie slid her legs out from under her and slowly placed the soles of her bare feet in the fraying carpet while still continuing her chattering banter. "I feel right as rain, honest…! Whatever healed me up out there did a really ace job, swear to Hyne and all that. Actually, I'll even wager you one that I can haul my bum all the way to my dorm doing nothing but the Mog dance, whaddya say??"

   "Unfortunately, too many scamps such as yourself have robbed me of my precious savings for me to accept any such offers ever again…" Doctor Kadowaki said with a droll lilt of a smile. "Ah, the resilience of youth these days… just you wait 'til you become middle age fodder like me, and we'll see who starts winning bets. Hyne knows whether still have enough for an easy retirement…" On that last good-natured grumble, the doctor turned and slipped out of the room as Selphie gingerly steadied herself, her senses alert to any indication of discomfort, pain or foreign feeling with each movement, but nothing was conveyed to her enquiring mind besides a disorientating sensation of exhaustion clogging her limbs, and a mild tightness around her calf muscles from the over-exertion of one to many stair climbs. The doctor reappeared as quickly as she had departed, a familiar yellow sun dress caked with scraps of flaking mud draped over her right white sleeved arm and a pair of water-wrinkled leather boots suspended from her left hand. "These should be pretty dry by now – they've been sitting near the heater since you were brought in. By Hyne, they were mighty wet… you must've taken one hell of a beating out there." An ominous peal of thunder sounded from outside the window barrier as though the storm was willingly accepting responsibility for Selphie's physical and mental state. From the sound of things, the storm had still refused to relinquish its grip on the heavens and was continuing to rage as strongly as it had when it first heralded its deafening arrival over Balamb. 

   "You'd better change back into these for now until you get to your dorm," Doctor Kadowaki advised, placing the items of clothing at the end of the ward bed. "We don't have much in the way of fashion in here, I'm afraid."

   "No sweat doc," Selphie chirped, leaning forward to grasp at the hem of her forlornly dirt-splattered dress and reeling it in towards her. The doctor discreetly slipped out of the ward and busied herself with a pile of files sitting upon her desk, her back turned and lips curled as they hummed a well known local tune.

   Selphie pulled the infirmary shift over her head and quickly slipped into her well worn dress, the material feeling more coarse and heavy with the extra dried weight of several thousand rain drops soaked into the fibres. The stretchy cloth still enclosed itself reliably around Selphie's form, and as she fiddled with the buckles dangling from the straps over her shoulders, she felt her mind starting to wander of its own accord…

   _Well, we've got a start on puzzling out the source and its magical nature… but what about the motive? Why… on Hyne's grave would… Clarrie and Marty be conjured up to make me run a half-mile through stormy weather, and to knock me down stairs only to let me live with hardly a scratch to show for it…? Why did the source pick up on… my Trabia memories, of all things? Did it purposely want to… hurt me? Physically and emotionally? And how did it even pick up on my memories in the first place? _

Her face demure, Selphie snapped the right buckle in place and pulled her arm under the arch of the joined strap. Meanwhile, Doctor Kadowaki had shifted to a cabinet behind her worktable, immersed in arranging several files tucked under her arm within a particular compartment.

   _The whole thing felt like… a screenplay, almost. Is that the best way to describe it? It was so darn dramatic, right from the very start with that… _

A flash of thought struck a bullseye in Selphie's plane of awareness and she lifted her chin, chewing her bottom lip as she contemplated. Hurriedly connecting the final strap and sliding the dress zipper up her midriff, she grabbed her boots and made for the open doorway, calling out even before she passed through it.

   "Doc? You said the faculty were closing up at the time they found me, right??" 

Doctor Kadowaki looked up from where she was rifling through a row of neatly tabbed files and paused as she absorbed Selphie's question, one thumb marking her place within the multitude of papers. "Well, yes, I guess I did. Why'd you want to know?"

   Selphie didn't answer at first, hopping wildly on one leg as she struggled to maintain her balance and pull on one stubborn boot while maintaining conversation all at the same time. "The ones that locked the gate…" she ventured, changing her dressing tactics by leaning against the door frame for support. "… they didn't see anyone around when they got there, did they?"

   The doctor blinked, casting her mind back. "Not that I can recall, no…"

   "And the ones that found me… they didn't see anyone nearby either?" Selphie cut in quickly.

   "If they did, they didn't mention it…"

   "No flashy lights? Explosions? Little kiddies running around in hysterics?"

Looking rather bamboozled, Doctor Kadowaki waved Selphie's insistent barrage to a stop. "Selphie… hallucinations are supposed to occur _after _a fall, not before… absolutely nothing of the sort was mentioned by the staff that brought you in, and no uproars have been raised as far as I can tell. Were they supposed to have seen what you saw?" Somewhat suspiciously, the doctor added, "What exactly did you think you saw, anyway?"

   "Um…" Selphie's eyes dipped, pretending to be mesmerised by the make of the underlying carpet.

_Wha…?? None of the faculty saw the figure that dropped through the gate? No one saw the apparitions of Marty and Clarrie, or the other Junior girl… jack all? How is that possible? Was it… really just a hallucination…?_

   No, Selphie silently worded, knocking the suggestion out of the air with a steel plated palm.

_   I know exactly what I saw._

"Ehhhh…" Selphie mumbled vaguely, steering her frowning thoughts back into reality and trying to stall for a bit of time… Her eyes tracked from the carpet to the shelf of medical books and the tips of the doctor's black glossy shoes… before glancing over the second boot hooked in the grasp of her curled fingers. _The shoe! Use the shoe!_ Selphie hastily dropped the remaining boot onto the floor and proceeded to pull the dismal act of being entirely engrossed in the task of squeezing her foot inside, her skin rubbing uncomfortably against the shrunken leather with a certain amount of friction. After one too many seconds had slipped away, she finally formulated a lame but mildly passable excuse… "Um…Just forget I said anything, doc… erm, maybe I really did hit my head too hard…" Selphie thought hurriedly, latching onto that last train of thought to fill the silence with any sort of random wonderings. "… I guess there're some things magic can't cure, huh?? Or maybe it was some sort of weird effect from sugar consumption, you should write up some cool mediciny thesis on it, I've got a whole bunch of ideas you could use and I could be a guinea pig if you wanted, I really wouldn't mind and…"

   "Okay okay okay, too much of that type of rambling and you'll never turn that brain off for sleep tonight," Doctor Kadowaki submitted, throwing up her hands in mock defeat. She inclined her head towards the open cabinet and clicked her tongue in reproach. "Now look what I've done… I've just lost my place…"

   Selphie was never one to pass up an opportunity for exit, and this was no exception. "Okies, I'll be leaving now then, 'k? Thanks for looking after me doc, I really appreciate it!"

   The doctor nodded, smiling in reply as she sifted through the files with wandering fingers. Her posed question seemed to have been temporarily forgotten, much to Selphie's relief. "Just to be on the safe side, call in tomorrow morning and I'll give you another check over to make sure you haven't gotten any nasty 'lurgies overnight. Can't have an Elite running around half-baked, can we?"

   "No ma'am, no we can't," Selphie bobbed her head in agreement. She cantered towards the infirmary door and it obediently slid open as its in-built sensors registered her body heat. "Oh, and if you see the faculty dudes who saved my sorry bum, could you give them a big 'thank ye'?? Thanks for everything again, doc!" On that final note, Selphie finally took her leave, darting out of the cosy roast that had filled the tiny infirmary and into the icy, marbled halls of the settling Garden. 

   Selphie trundled down the water-flanked path trailing towards the central junction hall, the clacking of her heels chiming with a steady cadence against the glossy tiles. The silence of the normally bustling Garden seemed to echo with a dull boom gathering with oppressive strength from the very bowels of the infrastructure, a silence that was only broken by the monotonous spattering of the ornamental fountains and the steady clicking marking Selphie's route as the path snaked steadily towards the dorms. 

   _It feels like an empty Garden… 'feels like I'm the only SeeD here…_

Selphie swallowed, an unwelcome and very familiar feeling tip-toeing into the depths of her guts. It had been relatively easy to maintain her outward, grinning disposition in the company of someone else or with others… but it was only when she was alone that her happy-go-lucky pantomime started to draw its curtains. The literal play-back of some of her most private memories before her very eyes had shaken Selphie considerably, although she preferred to bottle her festering discomfort than to let it show upon her face. In her mind's eye however, little could stop her from viewing the root of her darkening mood all over again… a massive empty husk of faded military splendour, the destruction rendered ever clearly against the stark blue emptiness of a snow washed sky, an epitome of living death… the rubble, debris and most of all, the bodies that were no longer there…

   _… so many bodies gone. _

The rain was still bashing heavily upon the outer armour of the Garden, creating a dull roar that bounced against the sleekness of the walls and sculpted tiles in the emptiness of the Garden corridors. As she turned off the circular path into the walkway branching off to the various SeeD sleeping quarters, Selphie was piercingly aware of how alone she suddenly felt in a place which was supposed to be… home. 

   _This was… is… not home. Home is gone. Gone up in smoke, screams and martial overkill. _

She traversed the narrow, dimly lit halls, her steps muted by the thickness of the plush navy carpet bolted firmly into the wooden floorboards. The walls murmured underhanded, muffled sounds as she breezed past, oblivious to their feather-like words… smothered speech, muted movements and whispers of fragments of sleeping spells, carried along the air currents in a melting, motley melody of descending night…

   Blip. The security device ingested the series of entered digits without kicking up a fuss, and smoothly slid the suite door open. A bucket of moonshine gushed its contents from the uncurtained window at Selphie's feet as she stepped into the cold, shadow spangled room. 

   _There's not really much to come back to in here after all… maybe I shouldn't have passed up the doc's offer._

As the door glided back into its previously closed state, Selphie shook her feet out of her restrictive boots and proceeded to undress in the dark, shrugging herself out of her waterlogged garment with a soft rattling of buckles and the rustling of stiffened cloth. Within the confines of her SeeD suite, the silence was bearing down upon her in an even more oppressive fashion, ringing in her ears and articulating every single one of her movements with what felt like high amusement. Doing her best to ignore the suffocating sound of emptiness brushing against her skin, Selphie mechanically slipped into her set of issued SeeD sleeping garments and crawled beneath the covers of her issued single sized SeeD bunk. Pulling the thin, starched blanket up to her chin, her body warred briefly against the indentations of the bumpy mattress before she eventually closed her eyes and prepared to surrender herself to the numbing embrace of slumber.

   _Everything feels so routine nowadays. _ 

   Selphie squeezed her dry eyes together, silently imploring her gloomy mind to sheath its prodding sword.

   _Everything… so constricted. It's not supposed to be this way._

She tossed her body to one side, flinging the sheet further over her new pose and snuggling down hard against the pillow. A new memory invaded her ticking thoughts, intercepting her passage towards the shadowy realm of temporary rest and peace.

   _I… wonder who that voice belonged to?_

Selphie could almost feel the weak, delicate words of the dream speaker brushing fleetingly against her ears again, leaving a warm tingle of nerves bustling beneath her skin in the wake of each gentle touch of sound. Asexual in timbre and fleetingly dusted with a vague glimmer of what possibly felt like… magic.

   _Whoever you were… you must have healed me… _

Selphie hugged her arms around her torso, trying to fill the space between her body and the blanket with as much self-generated heat as possible. 

   _… or were you the one who threw me down?_

She curled into a ball of entangled limbs, woven cloth and nagging questions, her hackles rising in response to her emotionally frustrated thoughts like the spines of a harassed hedgehog. The room was still so cold, and the persistent silence ever stifling.

   _It's going to be a very long night…_   

*** * ***

… and a very long chapter. XD I borrowed the definition of Para-magic from the explanation given in the study panel at the very start of the game, but I took some liberties in giving my own interpretation of how the magic actually works. As for Selphie's unique magic abilities, that's something that I feel she possesses judging from the nature of her limit break compared to the other characters… but I'm not going to go too deeply into that yet in this insignificant little blurb. =P *Hushes up* 

This also marks my start in showing a darker side to Selphie complimenting her overly happy personality – I find it impossible to believe that even someone as positive as her doesn't have at least one skeleton in her closet, and if your home Garden was blown up one day and your friends with it, would you get over it so quickly? :/ I'll be dealing with this in more detail in the upcoming chapters. Also, Selphie and Squall shall meet very very very soon, so please bear with me! =P 

Coming up next: darkness and depression abound! What black things doth Selphie and Squall think about when nobody's around (no, not THAT way you sickos. O_-) and how will this bring them together? What will the two of them uncover about this puzzling little mystery? Coming your way shortly! ^^  


	8. If these walls could talk

Greeteroonies, dear readers! I'm sorry that it's taken longer than usual to update this story, I've been set back a fair bit by an onslaught of uni work and things will probably continue to be rather slow on the fanfic front until I get through the first wave of my exams… :/ for now, here's the next instalment which will set the scene for the next heavy action of the story, and I apologise in advance for the gloominess – for now, the story's rating has temporarily changed to include 'angst'… =P 

I have also taken note of how most of you would like to see a Squall and Selphie romantic pairing, and your wishes are not falling upon deaf ears… ;) I've thus decided to incorporate romance into the storyline as soon as the time is right, and anyway, romance would be an interesting ingredient, plus a new challenge for me to tackle – And so the people have spoken! ^.^;; I'll let you all know when the rating changes again, but for now, please try to put up with this last bit of angsty stuff…. ^.~

**CHAPTER 7 – If these walls could talk:**

The distant, resonating chimes of the antique clock shattered the stillness of the nocturnal ambience, the tolling of the midnight hour being rapidly absorbed by the elegant wood panelling lining the walls like a second, glossy skin. The dull clangs emitted from the collision of the cluster of gilded pendulums within the ticking machine seeped through the solidness of the elaborately carved double doors centred in the empty hallway…

   Squall lay motionless on his back swathed in a bundle of tangled blankets, staring blankly and unblinkingly at a pattern of cracks mining their faint tendrils through the white plaster coating the ceiling. The pealing of the hour echoed softly throughout the dimly lit suite, subtly throbbing away like a dying pulse as the bells finally stilled, dampening their voices and melodic strains as they gave way once more to the unimpeachable authority of silence.

   Frosted shafts of moonlight speared through the chinks between the half-drawn, velvet curtains and the varnished windowsill, the light puddling over various promontories created by Squall's three-dimensional form and the shadowed creases marring the crumpled sheets. His dry, staring eyes had taken on an ethereal sheen as the silver orbs were bathed in a spreading pool of late night radiance penetrating the poorly drawn curtains, accentuated by the glow of pallid skin and the bronzed, straggling tendrils of a messy mane falling across a dark pair of shallow cheekbones. Heart shaped lips parted ever so slightly to reveal the glint of two upper teeth, the rigid aura emanating from the Commander's deceptively restful features spoke of a lion that was resolutely keeping the unwanted shroud of sleep at a respectful distance… 

   _Can't sleep… won't. Don't serve to._

In direct dissimilarity to his body's taut immobility, Squall's thoughts had transformed into a linkage of run away train carriages of complete pandemonium, over which his irritatingly opinionated mind voice insisted on narrating. The emotional whirlwind beating at Squall's insides was doing nothing in the way of ebbing, and instead of trying to snuff it out, he opted instead to ride its wild, bucking heart in an almost sadomasochistic fashion.

   _What's the point in being a leader…_

 Feather-soft exhalation, warming an icy upper lip.

   _… if you can't protect the ones you love…_

A blink… and the brush of silken lashes upon the graceful pergola of a rounded cheek…

   _What's the point of being a SeeD…?_

He subconsciously mouthed the biting words of his clouded mood to an unreceptive ceiling, lips moving so slowly and indistinctively to be only barely audible. 

   _I… don't know anymore._

Squall could feel the muscles of his back complaining from persistent stiffness… he knew that he had been laying in the same position for at least a good two hours, but somehow, he just couldn't muster enough energy to be bothered about it. Numbness had set in with the deadly swiftness of a blast of dry ice; he could register no sensation of buzzing nerves flitting nervously beneath the stretch of skin coating both of his legs… the hot, underground spring of surging blood grown meek and stagnant with the onset of the freeze. 

   _I've been protected before. Nurtured. Ellone at the orphanage… Quistis when I came to Garden. I want to do the same. I think… that's why I became a SeeD… SeeDs protect. But lately…_

A soft, slow sigh trickling through delicately curled nostrils… gentle moist breath belying the spreading inner frost… 

_… what's the point of it all, nowadays? I'm… a stupid, worthless Commander. I send out SeeDs to do the job I always wanted to do… and sit on my fattening ass at a block of wood all day. This wasn't how I wanted it to be. I'm… I'm not cut out to lead. Why couldn't Cid see that? Why wasn't I given any say? This whole thing reeks._

Squall closed his dampening eyes momentarily, concentrating on shoving the rising shriek of bottled-up frustration back down his throat. He swallowed hard, resuming the ongoing war within his chest against his hidden emotional inhibitions…

   _And then… there was her._

   Eyes flipping skywards like opened shutters… bucking heart… the eruption of the raging furnace that was a stomach…

   _Rinoa. You ruined me._

Bitter bile. Gulp it back down.

   _The way you laughed… when you brought the whole card tower tumbling down…_

"Shit," Squall suddenly growled out loud, violently yanking his unmoving, rigid body upright with impulsive vigour. Ripping his limbs away from the twisted sheets and flinging the offending material across the rumpled bed, he swept his deadened legs over the side of the mattress, only just detecting the pressure travelling up his comatose calves which informed his seething, swirling brain that his feet had made contact with the carpet. The stuffy air rotating around the space of the private suite was lukewarm but chilly, and mounds of gooseflesh instinctively swelled upon the bare skin of Squall's upper arms like rupturing toadstools at the loss of their warm cocoon of blankets.

   _I thought I was over this… through this, already! Why is it still eating away at me?! _

Squall ran loose fingers through his bed-tousled mop of hair, snagging a few painful tangles and snarls which he endured without protest. A light outbreak of sweat stained his frowning brow while his heart, provoked to anger like a rabid hound, refused to settle back into complacency. Unkempt and feverish in appearance, this was certainly not the consistently controlled and stoic Commander that most in the Garden were so accustomed in viewing… 

   _Get over it, you idiot. She didn't need a Knight. Didn't need protecting. No need for champions. She wanted to go on alone._

His inner voice sounded so empty, silent words falling upon a mind that was not blind to the half-truths within those same words.

   _She didn't need you. That's the bottom line… strung you along like a lovesick pup… and after you offered everything._

   On a timely cue, an advent of pins and needles scored an itchy trail down Squall's reviving legs, and he rose off the bed to shed some relief on the uncomfortable sensation. Blocked up blood gushing in full force back down previously sluggish currents, Squall helped his circulation along with some aimless pacing, scuffing his bare toes through the fine fibres of the soft, rich carpet. At the apex of his upright form, a dusky darkness was marring his aesthetic features, clinging to his flushed skin like the sodden fingers of a swampy mist. 

   _You're a frickin' loser. And she's a frickin' bitch. Great combo – why didn't it last?_

Squall replied to this thought with a dark guffaw, the harsh sound piercing the hushed atmosphere like an iron lance.

   _What does it matter? You just weren't good enough for her. That's the way it stands. Just what are you good for, then? Can't be depended upon… to even keep in contact with your family. Two weeks since you called Esthar? That's just pitiful. If they all upped and died the day after you called, their bones would've been picked clean by now… bodies torn apart by your neglect… and even if they somehow survived… you'd just as easily take a Gunblade to their heads, if that little show today was anything to go by. Good to see you're reliable for something._

He was being vicious, but he didn't mind – he found himself maliciously enjoying the throbbing bite of the self-inflicted wounds. The thoughts themselves were savage and utterly horrifying to the touch but they could very well be reality. Squall felt the distinction between the over world and his internal railings effectively blur as he wallowed messily in a stinking bog of his own self-loathing, an unnerving smile plastered across his cherubic, stormy face as he spread himself open to the ceaseless barrage of self-inflicted barbs… the punishing crucifixion of his detestation… stringing himself upon the arms of the gallows tree of his vilest self-abhorrence…

   _Drink it all up… right to the dregs…!_

As if overtaken by the foggy effects of a drunken stupor or the giddiness of an impulsive decision, Squall staggered blindly to the lean black case standing sentry-like in the corner of the suite, his arms outstretched as imploringly as those of a desperate lover… the rancid broth of his internal hostility gnawed at his stomach lining, culminating in a swelling pop of heat as his fingers clawed over the blunted corners of an ebony prism, groping further down until his fingertips traced along the cold sheen of a metal clasp.   

_   Fall back… it's the only thing you can do…_

A loud snap punctuated the stillness of the room as a steel latch sprung back against the hollow sound of toughened leather… an ensuing 'click' as an internal mechanism was granted release and the subtle creak of otherwise well-oiled hinges… 

   _… the only thing you can do well…_

Cold metal, sinking tiny teeth into the quivering flesh of a sweaty palm. Dozing, hateful beast… demure and placid under a familiar, commanding touch… _respected master_… lifted tenderly from the confines of a velvet mantle, long lean length of lethal keenness gleaming with a wicked, upturned grin that mirrored its wielder in every way…

   _Death dealer. If no one wants you to protect… then I guess you'll just have to destroy. Or Kill. Whichever comes first. It's all the same to me._

   There was a muffled fumbling as articles of clothing were pulled on roughly in the dark, followed by the whisper of a click as a door slid open and shut in one motion. Feathered footsteps breezing down the yawning maw of a dozing hall…       

   _Whatever. Let's just kill._

**----------------------------------------**

_Dismal streaks of grey drifted overhead, wisps of clouds blown apart by the tumultuous winds that billowed in the blotchy basin of winter sky... flecks of bitter snow, so cold that they possessed a burning touch, spiralling from the frowning grey canopy overhead and coating the stony path in a peaceful white frost._

Heels ringing on rock.

**_   Where are you? Are you there?!_**

_Twisting, turning… lost in a maze of silence.... silence.... the silence. Tattered rags, like shredded banners, limping in the breeze. Smashed and wounded walls... the bodies._

_   **The bodies??**_

_They lie where they fell; where they died their pitiful deaths.... the dead don't need pity. The dead don't need tears._

_   **But I cry for them anyway....**_

Heels ringing on rock.

_Faces of friends, of bygone days, of times when death was not a valid option in the scheme of things.... Brimming eyes click skyward, wounded Garden, raw and crude._

_   **My Garden... what have they done…? What have **_**I_ done?_**

**_    ……_**

**_    What _****haven't_ I done…?_**

_   Stinging snow, the world turns black.... black snow, charred and hard._

_   **… Where are you?!**_

****_ Silence howls, the sky flickers, dims and dies..._

_   **I can't find you.... any of you....**_

**_    ……_******

   :They're gone. Nothing's left. They've left you all alone. They were all so selfish, to die and leave you alone…:__

_   **!!!**_

**_   Who are you? Why… am I seeing this again?_**

****:It does not matter who I am. What matters is who you are. You are a very talented individual.:

   **_I… don't understand… a-are you using me? Why are you bugging me?_**

:No. I only want to help you. An awesome power is about to be yours, a power to be exercised only at your discretion. You will not know how to control it... Untempered, such power would be lethal to yourself and to your loved ones. You do not want to harm your loved ones… I can help you control what will be yours, so that you will be of no danger… nobody will die if you would only let me he…:

    _:… Selphie!! Wake up! Get away from here!:_

_    **Wha..?!**_

****:…yOu BiTcH! WHaT aRe YoU…:

   _:Run! Leave this dream!!:_

:HOw… DaRe YoU…!! I'Ll FiX yOu…!:

Plunging, spinning, turning over and around again… plummeting downwards towards an upper pinprick of luminance… sour blasts of wind scoring heated paths across sleep-tender skin…

   _    
Heels ringing on rock..._  
**---------------------------**  
Selphie woke with a jolt, desperately ripping her way out the ghastly bonds of the nightmare, still feeling the scalding sting of the charred snow and rancid wind on her upper arms and cheeks. _The silence_...! No… she was awake. The silence was instead throbbing heavily throughout the room instead of her world of unrestful slumber, emanating from behind the closed dorm door from the dormant Garden halls.   
   Selphie clambered out of bed, smoothing down her ruffled hair, waiting for her raging heart to cease its almost painful hammering against her ribcage. The storm seemed to have played its ferocious heart out at last, and a steady rain was gently pattering against the closed window, producing a muffled rhythm through the glass like tapping fingers enclosed in the skin of a glove. The sound was surprisingly soothing, aiding Selphie's inner recovery and providing a slow, steady beat by which her decelerating heart could try to match… still cradling her bowed head in a shaky grip of wobbling fingers, Selphie methodically attempted to piece her fractured thoughts back into a coherent whole.    
   _Time compression..._ Selphie shuddered, feeling slightly calmer as she fiercely concentrated on nothing else but the healing tempo of the thumping rain._ I… can't deny it. I've never gotten over it.... they thought I had, but they... it's my own fault.... I thought I didn't care.... _Misery clouded Selphie's features, an emotion that had never been witnessed by anyone other than the dormitory walls. She was vaguely aware of the aching pressure of her shoulders, pressed tightly behind her ears as she subconsciously curled her body into a protective, invisible shell. 

   _They never knew how I… got lost… and wound up back at Trabia… just before the missiles hit…_

Shaking the now unbearable tension out of her neck and shoulders, Selphie began to mooch thoughtfully, dragging her bare toes through the thick, woolly rug on the floor beside her bed. _I dreamt it all so clearly. I really felt like I was there all over again… a silent witness. I knew what would happen, but I couldn't stop it. All I could do was watch… watch but couldn't warn… I felt so helpless, so frustrated… and then it all got interrupted…?_

Selphie paused in mid-stride, casting her mind reel back to the… dream speaker. The… whispered promises… and the underlying aroma of a subtly veiled threat…

   _This is really weirding me out. Everything that's happened today… it's all… a bit much, isn't it? Calm down, girl… no use whining… think back… what did they say again…? They mentioned… a 'power'? A power that would be mine? Ha ha… It sounds like something out a lame movie… I mean, why would something like that happen to me? Why now, of all times? But… even if this is some sort of stupid gag or silly overreaction… what's happened so far today and tonight is a bit too disturbing to just pass off lightly at the moment. I guess we'll have to assume the worst until proven otherwise… which means that something or someone out there is obviously interested in whatever 'power' happens to be making headlines… which… throws me into the firing line…_  

   Clenching her fists into near seamless balls, Selphie felt a heated stab of high irritation and indignation lance through her abdomen. _I'm being used – I know I am! But I don't know why, what for and by whom! Am I being watched right now? Is someone listening to my thoughts as I think them? And what type of sicko would pluck out my memories and turn them against me? _

Selphie squeezed her eyes shut and focused on her quickening breath, suddenly fearful that her suspicions might not be as unfounded as she first conceived… there was no telling who – or what – was currently eavesdropping on her internal raging… and the very thought was beginning to terrify her.

   _Why?_

   …

   _Why… me?_

Selphie held her breath as she pronounced the question with a silent voice, almost anticipating a reply from the elusive force, or forces, that were haunting her… a heartbeat passed, followed by several more in which Selphie managed to cobble together most of her fraying composure, but no familiar ticklish touch brushed against the channels of her magic sensors. She permitted herself to relax slightly, but still remained alert.

   _It's… strange. I could almost have sworn I heard… two voices in that dream…_

   Selphie scrunched her lips together, her eyes rolled back in reflection.

   _I don't know. It was hard to tell… there were so many sounds, all jumbled together…_

With sober ruminations, she could hear the fleeting screams and rattling moans so piercingly clear… the racked weeping, and tinkle of loose rubble upon split and sobbing earth… a horrifying chorus of a suffering portion of humanity, a hymn of aftershock and silent devastation… replaying over and over like a jammed record at the back of her head and frustratingly out of reach…

   Weakness bit gleefully into Selphie's joints as the memories flooded back to plague her once more, tearing apart half-healed scars and refusing to loosen their iron grip on her conscience in both worlds of dreams and actuality. She wrapped her arms firmly around her middle, as though suddenly gripped with the fear of her trembling insides exploding into the open air in a chaotic storm of blood and meat, wishing desperately for solace, relief, _escape… anywhere but here… anywhere away from the past… I'm so tired of all of this, so tired of pretending that nothing's wrong so that no one will have to care…_      

_   I won't worry anyone.... _Selphie continued to think fiercely, exerting everything in her arsenal to enforce her thoughts convincingly enough to fool even herself… _we're SeeDs. **I'm** a SeeD. We're not supposed to be afraid of anything... we're supposed to be able to look after ourselves. I **can **look after myself. I **will.** I **am **happy. There is absolutely nothing wrong. I am **not **afraid of anything!_

   Selphie's abjected look suddenly hardened.

   _Absolutely nothing at all._

With a new, purposeful edge to her previous watery stride, she marched stiffly across the room on a trajectory aimed directly at a leather case propped against the dresser. Crouching behind the dresser, her features completely drenched by the puddle of shadows cast by the bulky wooden furniture, Selphie probed the darkness with searching hands, eventually releasing a concealed catch and swinging a creaking, protesting lid skywards. She dipped her hands deep inside the complying jaws of the case, her skin scraping against the silky softness of the rich inner lining, outstretched fingers suddenly crumbling upon impact with what felt like a glossy tube of sleek, glacial glass. Further enquiry with investigating fingers located the scratchy texture of leather straps, their clasps snapping easily apart as careful hands slid underneath and drew forth two burnished bars of polished blue-green from their enclosure, smeared with layers of dormant savagery and quiet menace. She stroked the icy weapon comfortingly, knowing that the heat of her hands would gradually warm the interior of the weapon with her essence, spreading throughout the length of it, ignited with blazing battle fire swelling deep within the core...  
   The soft click barely echoed through the empty dorm corridor, and the lightly stepping figure that slipped out into the echoing hallway was clothed in shadows, dark as hell-spawn and radiating an air of hushed, deliberating threat. A spark of moonlight cut through the rain-washed glass of an overhead sky dome, bouncing off the sleek surfaces of two lean shafts of sculpted Adamantine held in the figure's grasp.   
   _A SeeD doesn't fear anything... and I don't fear anything, because I'm a SeeD. I don't fear time. I don't fear dreams. I don't fear memories. I don't fear monsters..._   
   The figure advanced down the silent pathway away from the dozing dorms, clothed in shadows.   
   _I don't fear time. I don't fear monsters._  
   The figure breezed past an illuminated lime green sign, the luminescent glow picking out the formulation of two simple words. 'Training centre'.  
   _I can kill time... by killing monsters..._  
   The figure marched down the corridor, clothed in shadows. 

*** * ***

Well, I decided that it would be inevitable to exclude Rinoa from this story as much as I would've liked to, although I have some interesting plans in mind for Rinoa later which will satisfy my anti-Heartilly tendencies… XD *****evil laughter*** **(I hope that it's vaguely clear (oxymoron?) that Rinoa is not at Balamb Garden, which shall be explained in due time.)I also apologise if I made Squall come across as dangerously mental, and if I did… well, there's a good reason for it, trust me! =P More of my investigation into what lies behind Selphie's smile… andthree guesses for where Selphie and Squall are going to bump into each other…? ;) And about time too, seven chapters have already passed and I'm only just getting a move on… @__o;;; The next update will probably be pretty late in coming, so please be patient, I'll definitely try and make the next chapter worthwhile! ;)

Coming up next: Under what type of circumstances will Selphie and Squall cross paths at a time when even the biggest party-goer is resting in bed? Will they be able to pool their resources together and discover the common ground between their recent supernatural experiences? (Well duh, otherwise there'd be no story… XD) Ahem. ^.^;;; Errr… anyway, I'll see you there! Bye for now! *waves* 


	9. Out of hiding

*Falls back in with a gi-normous SPLAT* X______X Holeeeeee crud it's been awhile, and I'm really sorry you've had to wait so long! Firstly, I had to get through two very annoying exams that demanded all my attention, not to mention fighting my way through a mild strain of writer's block… ¬_¬;;; I was intending for this chapter to be a lot longer than what it is now (even if it still equals out as the second longest chapter I've written so far) in order to make up for the delay in updating, but too much would've been going on to make it possible, so I had to end it at a certain point. =P Well, things will start getting explained now, and the action/adventure/romance bit should be happening as soon as these explanations have been dealt with – I guess I'd better stop yakking and make it happen faster, eh? XD 

PS: Zero-Vision – yes, of course I've listened! ^_~ And Mary, since Hotmail keeps sending back the e-mails I've tried sending to you, I'd like to thank you here for your support! ^__^ I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far, and a big thankyou too to everyone else who has provided feedback, it really does mean a lot to me. :)

****

**CHAPTER 8 – Out of hiding:**

A thoroughly ugly beast to behold and equally as offensive to the nose, the lone Grat meandered lopsidedly across an open stretch of clearing, the hairs of its spindly legs gripping random patches of shrub and grass as it pulled its bulging mass ever nearer to the breathy whisper of flowing water. It was vaguely aware, with a very dulled smear of intelligence, of the increasing stickiness of its oily hide as a result of the highly humid air circulating around its enclosure. The Grat however was hardly concerned with the reasons behind its present infirmity, if it was even capable of registering anything deeper than its immediate discomfort – water was near, and water was what the Grat instinctively knew it required. The layers of fat swimming beneath its pocked, sickly green skin swayed as the Grat ungracefully hauled its quivering weight over an impeding fallen log, landing rather heavily on its front with its multiple legs waving nonsensically in the air like fraying pieces of string, before struggling upright with obvious difficulty. Pincer jaws clacking noisily, the Grat continued along its way unperturbed, its senses narrowing to a single point upon the ever nearer, tantalising smell, sound and distant touch of a moving body of water. It forced its way through a wall of foliage consisting of brightly hued leaves and flower petals, staining any flora which had the unfortunate luck of being in its way with a film of foul smelling slime, and then proceeded to manoeuvre ungainly through a particularly dense framework of vine-choked trees. The sound of its coming was hardly subtle, twigs snapping in protest beneath the Grat's heavy bulk, and leaf-encrusted branches rustling angrily as the swing of a stray leg disturbed their motionless demeanour. Water, so dearly longed for… the slick chorus of bubbling droplets sounded near enough to wallow in, tempting the Grat to new degrees of frustration as it navigated through the green gauntlet of forestation. 

If its senses were more acute, its wits honed sharper… or in other words, not born a Grat… the bumbling creature might have bothered to notice the curious manner in which the resonance of the water source seemed to retreat with each length won by its struggle against the impediment of stubborn trees… but the Grat was no epitome of intellect, or even common sense, hence it could foresee none of the reckless consequences of its awkward venture into uncompromising terrain. Thoroughly displaced from its element of open spaces, the Grat ultimately found itself in the inelegant position of being hopelessly entangled, the joints of its slender legs wrapped in the tight embrace of drooping creepers and the unbalanced proportions of its body tipping the Grat off its centre of gravity. Flailing rather pathetically in its bonds, it was hardly aware of the strange fact that the gurgling of its aspired water source had suddenly ceased…

The vision of the Grat was decidedly more developed than its four other senses, with the possible exception of touch, and so it was not beyond it to detect a blinding platinum flash through the gaps of the undergrowth, the type of flash commonly created by the effect of ambient light vaulting off a solid, metallic platform. Incapable of registering colour on any scale, the glimpses of brown and black weaving through the cavity of the leaves were unfortunately lost on the captive, dim-witted creature. 

What _was_ easily unmistakable however, was a distinct and ominous rumble akin to that of shaking earth, punctuated by a confusing overtone of what could be likened to the violent swilling of water in a pail… 

… and then the wall of green before the incarcerated Grat suddenly parted before the brutal force of a horizontal pillar of foaming water, exploding in a flurry of spray against the Grat's torso with an impact on the par of a solidly connected fist to the stomach. With an inhuman shriek of shock and hurt, the Grat found itself knocked backwards, the momentum of the blow having shredded the vines suspending its form. Propelled by the unceasing onslaught of watery might, the Grat flew through the air at the head of the pillar like a sculpted mascot fixed at the prow of a ship, legs scrabbling desperately for a grappling hold on any solid object. Before this could be achieved, the broad trunk of an aging tree met the airborne Grat in the middle of its crazy flight with a resounding crash and a mild shower of splinters. Tumbling out of the air and plopping among the nest of roots snaking away from the foot of the tree, the Grat found itself beset by the sensation of intense, burning injury as the water pillar broke apart against the wooden barricade of leaves and branches, showering the already drenched monster with heavy, fat, droplets of moisture that felt for all the world like battering hail stones.

Sucking in air noisily between its pincer beak, trying to squeeze as much oxygen into its winded form as it could from around the asphyxiating curtain of falling water, the Grat was only just able to register a series of rapidly approaching thumps resonating through the soggy ground over the trickling chorus of dissipating water… a warning swish, a second metallic flash and then a searing flare of pain which coursed a blazing path through every greasy fibre of the Grat's being with an intensity that cleanly lifted its form off the mud in a spine-snapping arch, and drove an uncanny sounding screech from the squashed depths of its sunken throat. A spurt of olive green and brown spewed forth from the yawning gash that had suddenly materialised on the dripping abdomen of the yowling Grat, looking shockingly like the crazily curved lips of an open-mouthed, drooling grin. With senses clouded over by the white hot sensation of injury, the Grat floundered in a delirious rage within the saturated dirt, kicking up a storm of mud flecks, rock shards and fragments of twigs with its wildly thrashing legs. In reaction to its maddened fury, bulging pores scattered across its bleeding hide spontaneously proceeded to weep an evil looking substance with a tint like that of withered rotting corn, dribbling across the heaving planes of the infuriated Grat's bulk and pooling in a hissing puddle of muddied water and lime hued blood within the trench its lashing feet had carved through the mud. Its bulging eyes tracking furiously on the ends of their stalks, the Grat suddenly fixed its hazy vision upon an object standing before it, an object that had previously not been there the last time it had checked… upright, yet bearing no likeness to the vertical stance of the sentry trees… this object was not a tree, for it was not only living but noticeably breathing and blinking, and the Grat had enough meagre intelligence at its disposal to understand that trees did not cut, did not dish out hurt… did not flash, like this object did! Reaching the end of this slow process of elimination, the Grat finally registered the source of its predicament with a rasping snarl, flinging its flat-ended arms forward in a blurred strike with the sole intention of inflicting hurt upon its assailant, a hurt that might mirror something of what it was currently experiencing... 

Squall Leonhart was quicker than any old Grat, and was certainly not to be outdone or shamed by one that was of all things, crippled. Throwing himself to the left within the safety net of a cluster of trees and spiny leafed shrubs, the Grat's arms struck harmlessly against the sunken footprints left by the now scarce SeeD with a biting slap of flying mud and broken rock.

Squall was never one to delay the inevitable for very long, and this occasion was no exception to the rule – as swiftly as he had sought the shelter of the trees, he now broke forth in a tight-lipped storm of wayward leaves and loose leafs of bark, Gunblade glimmering with hungry malice, its appetite already whetted by the steaming sheen of monster blood coating its subtle edge. The waterlogged clay underfoot sucked against the SeeD's leather-soled boots with a sticky grip as his galloping feet slammed heavily into the sludge-filled puddles, causing him to slide rather unsteadily in his headlong charge, but this still did little to check the speed of his momentum. In a heartbeat, the Grat was close enough for Squall to fall victim to an - otherwise unwanted – intimate encounter with the beast's rather rancid body odour, a combination of the reek of its wounded meat and the stench of the jaundiced poison leaking out of its dilated pores… an aroma which was more than enough to make one's eyes pool in reaction. Oblivious to his nose's evident discomfort, Squall ducked beneath the waving arms of the irate Grat and pulled up slightly to avoid a messy physical collision with the stinking specimen. This close, he could clearly count the Grat's bulging half-dozen eyeballs, glazed over with bodily run-off and the monster's unique trademark of pitiful stupidity. This close, the Grat could also count his if it so wished, but as it was, it of course was not interested – the throaty roar that erupted from the depths of its foaming jaws was enough evidence of what the Grat's intentions lay in regards to the gadfly of a SeeD. With what was undoubtedly a mammoth effort considering the burden of its infirmity, it propelled its entire sodden bulk out of the swampy trench it was currently emersed in and lunged its podgy form forward in a headlong charge, serrated pincer jaws stretched wide to receive the juicy human morsel crouched at the ready before it…

  The Gunblade cut a blurred arc of light through the air and smashed resonantly against the Grat's gaping maw, forcing the beast's head backwards with a violent jerk, compelling it to utter another agonised screech as its jaws momentarily resisted, then caved under the crashing blow of the blade in a messy shower of fracturing bone with a sound like that of exploding crockery. Squall quickly ducked his head under the protective arbor of his free arm under the pelting rain of broken shards, feeling the sharp fragments bouncing off the toughened leather of his well-worn jacket and hearing them plopping distinctively and noisily into the dirty puddles underfoot… but there was no more time to waste for self-preservation, he knew. Otherwise he'd never finish what it was that he had started… Blowing the messy stray bangs out of his eyes, Squall straightened, Gunblade cocked at the ready, eyeing the evidence of his blade work upon the now thoroughly anguished Grat with an almost sadistic amusement softening the callous line of his bowed lips. The beast was completely beyond further retaliation, reeling pathetically as a shocking bruise – the hue like that of blades of grass painted by a midnight brush – spread the tentacles of its ugly matt across the breadth of the Grat's flabby throat, radiating from the bleeding flesh hugging the chipped, forlorn remains of a shattered jaw. Tottering unsteadily, the Grat's wavering body finally sagged heavily against the bough of the tree behind it as it hacked out a liquid cough, a thin river of thick black bile trickling out of the corner of its broken orifice. External and internal bleeding was killing the creature with a grimly efficient execution, rendering it as helpless as a newborn kitten, and Squall reluctantly allowed the stained, slimy point of the Gunblade to dip towards the ground. Adrenaline was still coursing relentlessly through his veins, causing his fists to judder and his muscles to protest as he willed the tension out of his limbs, but the urgency had come and gone, the initial danger passed. Still, he revelled in the satisfying flush heating his cheeks as the feverish fire of combat continued to crackle and burn beneath his skin, the startling clarity of his senses akin to that of a hunting wildcat… in battle, merged in an intimate consummation with the wicked keenness of the weapon he chose to wield so long ago, he could almost forget himself. Lose himself, in fact.

The Gunblade is the perfect lover in so many ways… 

Squall closed his eyes in contemplation, fingers wrapped languidly around the ridged grooves of the weapon's leather hilt as he lowered its now vertical length against the marshy softness of the ground. The spastic wheezing of the dying Grat was the only background clamour which could pose an interruption to the SeeD's gathering thoughts. This, he pointedly ignored.

_… it will fight for you… It cannot die… and… and it will never leave you…_

The frown that Squall always wore like a second skin deepened, the ridge indenting his forehead creasing as his muscles tightened.

_This is the type of commitment that suits you best. You're a lone wolf, always have been and always will… too much trouble to take any other path. You don't need anyone. You can go alone. Stuff relationships, stuff love. All that mindless fluff and drivel, it just isn't you. You taught me that, Rinoa, I'll give you that much credit…_

:…Really? And what else did you learn from her…?:

Squall's flung his eyes open with a startled gasp as a foreign voice suddenly intersected his internal dialogue, cleanly slicing up anything else he had intended to lecture himself about. The voice was wispy and vague, yet so unbelievably distinct that its timbre pricked sharply against the walls of his grey matter like filed needles, demanding – and receiving - his full, utmost attention… 

:Don't look so surprised. This isn't anything you haven't experienced before.:

"Who the hell are you?" Squall half-yelled, confused as to where he should be directing his voice. Swivelling left and right, he blinked rapidly, trying to discern whether anyone was near enough to warrant responsibility as the voice's source. Then came the voice again, a featherlike giggle caressing his agitated thoughts.

:You're not scared, are you? Of me? The Squall I knew would never admit it…:

Squall felt himself freezing up, the hot glow that had been warming his battle-charged skin solidifying with a brittle snap, but his eyes continued to burn as a flicker of recognition warily crept into his wide-eyed stare. "Ellone? Is that you?"

Pause. 

"Answer me! Are you alright? You were the one who… sent that thing today, weren't you?" Squall involuntarily roared, the crucible of his stifled fears and frustrations having burst a main. He could feel his ears growing hot as his heart pounded almost painfully within the cavity of his chest, suddenly seized with a desperate longing for confirmation.

:Ellone? What would make you think that she would bother to remember you, when you choose to exercise a double standard?:

The words struck Squall's conscience with the force of a slap having reached its maximum velocity, and he found himself taking a step back. "What the shit are you talking about?" He snapped. "Who the hell is this? Where's Ellone?"

:I hardly think that's important right now.:

"Oh, you bet your precious ass that's the priority of the moment," Squall snarled ominously, narrowing his eyes as he tightened his slackened grip around the revolver's handle. His temper, usually checked by a short leash, was now straining unusually far from its staked post. "What have you done with her?! That's her voice you're using, isn't it? Hyne help me, I'm gonna…" 

:You would dare to threaten me? To talk to me like that?:

Squall could almost have sworn that the voice had grown decidedly more shrill as it expressed its affront, but it was difficult to pinpoint what with the… the sudden… pain… _so intense…_ _what the hell…?! Dearest Hyne… what's happening…. Ugh…_

A high-pitched buzzing was ringing relentless between his ears, humming to the brutal vigour of a breaking wave of pain that was ravaging his inner self, chewing casually with dulled incisors into the pulpy mass of his keening brain. With a rasping gasp, Squall found himself stumbling as the right side of his body collapsed underneath the strain plaguing his senses, but with the exertion of a stubborn iron thread of pride, struggled to hold himself up against his unseen adversary. Irregardless of his ordeal, Squall's grip on the Revolver remained as tenacious as ever, despite the fact that the burden it was placing upon his straining, knotted muscles was evident to the naked eye… this act of bravado evidently stirred an amused reaction, as the voice ventured forth once more.    

:How pitiful. When confronted with what one does not understand… can never understand… what one fears… you all raise a weapon. How else but to explain a SeeD? Weak cowards, all of you… and their Commander is hardly any exception… you truly fear me, Squall. You always have…:

A tinkle of mind laughter clashed through the film of pain clouding Squall's senses like the metallic chorus of wind chimes caught in a gust. 

:… but you are not wrong to fear me.:

The heavy, oppressing hand of discomfort that had been shoving viscously against Squall's inner strength with bony fingers miraculously lifted. Half-dazed, he realised that he had been keeled over at the waist, the joints of his wrists radiating soreness from having subconsciously clenched the revolver so fiercely during his brief distress. 

:Let me show you why…:

There was little time for recovery, or for the collection of scattered scraps of dignity. No sooner had Squall tentatively straightened that an unseen force seized him by his wild brown mane of hair, yanking his head backwards with a ferocity that forced him to lurch his body with the flow for fear of having his neck snapped. Eyes wild with swirling fear and shock, Squall squirmed against his steel-fisted opponent like a pinned and mounted moth, even as he felt himself being lifted clean off the ground. Fear was rapidly swamped by an onset of crimson-hued rage, swelling outwards from his gut like an inflated bubble of magma, and blossoming through his coursing veins like a blooming bramble bush. The sheer indignity of his position, dangling unceremoniously like a wriggling worm skewered on a hook, was nearly enough to make Squall spit ink, but incapable of such a trick, the Commander settled instead for a roared string of choice profanities which would have deprived him of a month's worth of pay at the expense of his Swear Jar, if Quistis had been around to hear. Squall groped blindly behind him as he continued to rail, hoping that his clawed fingers would imbed themselves in a tangible enemy that was not insusceptible to the kiss of sharpened steel, but he was to be disappointed. Then… laughter, again… coursing down the tingling channels of his magic sensors, sounding as bright and chirpy as a blue spring morning. 

_Dearest Hyne… Ellone's laugh…! Say it isn't so, say it isn't so… Elle, are you being controlled?!_

:You look so adorable when you're helpless, Squall, just like when you sleep… how could I hurt you when you give me that look?:

_If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's being toyed with!! _Squall's mental voice was practically shrieking its affront, as old and ugly feelings of abhorrence surfaced like sunken corpses from his memory bog. _Just like… like…_

Understanding, breaking through like the dampened rays of the sun following a solar eclipse.

Flashback…

_"You looked so adorable, sleeping like a baby…"_

……

_Once… a long time ago… those words…?_

Realisation, detonating within his stomach with a blazing pop.

_!!!!!!_

_No way. No way. But. At the same time… _

_……_

Acceptance. 

_Yes. Yes it is._

_……_

_… Rinoa?!_

The effect was positively catatonic. Squall abruptly relinquished his feverish struggles, his limbs growing as floppy and inert as those of a rag doll. He couldn't remember a time when he'd been hit harder, not by Seifer, not by Edea, not by anyone or anything. Rendered mute, rendered numb. Forgot how to breathe, how to blink…

Yellow mind laughter, like draughts of sweet melting butter.

:Meanie. Took you long enough.:

----------------------

_Ow… that was a pretty hard hit… serves you right, you duffer – gallivanting off like that in the dead of night, biting off more than you could chew…_

Selphie winced as she reluctantly peeled her hand away from the stinging gash that tarnished the previously unblemished porcelain of her left shoulder, her fingers coming away sticky with drying blood, but at least the bleeding was beginning to slow. It wasn't a serious injury – a clean cut, not deep enough to nick the underlying bone – but Selphie knew from experience that her arm was going to be stiff and sore for at least a week's worth of healing as a price for her carelessness. Scanning her magical stocks, she inwardly kicked herself for not remembering to pile up curative magic before jumping the gun, but it was a bit too late to do much about it now. Still cradling her wounded limb close to her body, Selphie slumped against the cold iron of the stair railing for a breather, doing her utmost to ignore the miserable ache of her arm through gritted teeth. Several metres away, the inflicters of her infirmity were currently lying in a bruised and battered heap, the stench of their demise already luring scavengers and flies to inspect the grisly carcasses.

_A year ago, I could've dealt with two Grats with my eyes closed, both legs tied and zombified… _Selphie chided herself silently, feeling somewhat miffed. _You're getting lazy, girl… there just haven't been enough threats lately to warrant enough attention. 'Better get back into training, Hyne knows you certainly need it!_

With a quiet nod of affirmation, Selphie then adjusted her dials to a different frequency requiring immediate attention. "Tsk tsk…" Selphie clicked her tongue in a critical manner as her eyes swept over the stained, glossy lengths of Adamantine that she was currently holding before her for inspection; the mineral was by far too oily and hardy to suffer anything as superficial as nicks or scratches, but regardless of how tough any substance could be, Selphie reflected that she was yet to encounter anything that could resist the unsavoury touch of filth. Coated with foul smelling slime, monster blood and dried sweat, her usually illustrious Strange Vision was in a very forlorn state indeed. Wrinkling her nose at the smell, Selphie had no wish to scrub the weapon clean with her bare hands alone. _'Best to head for the stream… and hope we don't run into any trouble along the way…_

On that note, Selphie propelled herself up the metal mesh of the staircase which would connect her with the path leading towards the Training Centre's artificial water feature, her steps crashing noisily against the wired grating despite her personal wish to keep a low profile. She wasn't too concerned about being waylaid, knowing that the sheer stink of a Grat was easily identifiable at least ten metres downwind, while the more perilous threat posed by the fearsome T-Rexaur was made less of a worry due to the impossibility for such an enormous beast to conceal itself effectively enough to ambush its prey. Still, prevention was always better than the cure… Selphie was also irritatingly aware that her size and stature always worked towards giving her person the aura of an easy target to not only monsters but people in general, a misconception that she chose to thoroughly render wrong whenever the opportunity arose. Sparring and journeying with her previous team mates had earned her their respect, but it was still sometimes difficult whenever it came to her duty of tutouring the Juniors, whose inflated confidence sometimes threatened to up-lodge Selphie's governing authority over them on the basis of her size and girlish demeanour…            

"I'm not small, I'm just surrounded by a bunch of bean stalks…" Selphie muttered under her breath. Her heels no longer echoed against the hollow bong of steel, instead biting firmly into the crunchy gravel of the dusty path which wove its way through the thinning foliage. Her size had always been a bit of a touchy point for her, having earned jeers and ridicule in her early days as a SeeD novice and occasionally drawing double takes from those who encountered her for the first time. Selphie knew that since the success of Balamb Garden against the threat of the Sorceress, she and her team mates had been inflated into larger than life heroes… the expectations were sometimes difficult to live up to, the image sometimes too large to fill. Occasionally, Selphie longed for life before the Sorceress, a life free of obligations and menace around every corner, nothing but halcyon days of simple tasks and solving petty disputes…  

_… but deep inside, we know that there's no such thing as 'before the Sorceress'… the Sorceress always 'is'. There's never been a time when there was none, when there was no power that could be potentially abused. You know your duties as well as anyone, even if it's not all fun and roses. SeeD is the check on the Sorceress whenever the need arises, no matter what the occasion or whether those we love get hurt in the process… it was hard, fighting Matron… but our SeeD duty towards the safeguarding of innocents trumps personal emotions and personal relations. I hate how that sounds so cold… I'd… I'd really… hate having to go through something like that again…  _

Absorbed in her thoughtful ponderings, Selphie almost missed the turning towards the stream, jerking herself out of drifting space long enough to remember why she'd set off on the path in the first place. Her boots scuffed up loose clouds of dirt as the packed earth gave way to worn wooden planks which amplified her clomping footsteps, accompanied by the happy gurgling of bubbling water sluicing a liquid path over river-worn stones. Selphie ambled across the make shift bridge spanning the distance between the forested shore and the tiny island in the middle of the stream, the slopes of the island chiselled smooth and flawless by the file of the water currents.

Slipping a little on a patch of moss, Selphie dropped to her knees upon reaching the island and dunked her soiled weapon into the flowing stream, her eyes widening a little at the shock of the icy crucible of the water which was engulfing her submerged hands.          

_Bah… I forgot how messy fighting Grats can be… _Selphie inwardly complained as she rubbed the Adamantine shafts with a vigorous palm, keeping a firm grip on the weapon by enclosing its chain within the grasp of her other hand. The motion caused the dull pain in Selphie's shoulder to flare in protest, strong enough to force a hissed intake of breath whistling through her clenched teeth… the overall combination of scrubbing off Grat gunk and an inconveniently placed flesh wound was enough to make Selphie think twice in the future about the intelligence (or lack thereof) of casting off her beauty sleep for the sake of venting some inner steam…  

Grumbling under her breath, Selphie shrugged off the smarting of her shoulder and focused on scraping off the troublesome cakes of grime that had solidified during her short walk through the centre, a slow task that she unfortunately found she could not achieve without the use of her fingernails, and the water was chilling her hands to the point of hypothermia the longer she took to complete her undertaking.     

_Stupid things… horrible, ugly things… why'd they have to bleed so much? Hate hate hate! I'm an Elite, why do I have to do my own washing? _Selphie felt a fingernail resist, then spontaneously snap from the friction of her scrubbing, souring her mood even further. "I should be having servants… as much nail lotion as I want…" Selphie belly-ached as she leant into the scouring, "… no more stupid dreams… a Garden Festival… a year's supply of red cordial… pets allowed in the Garden and…"

_:Selphie!! Quick, answer me!:_

"HECK!!" Selphie yelped in genuine surprise and mild embarrassment, having been caught red-handed talking to herself about hardly flattering subjects, and a far from subtle blush razed a crimson path across her cheek bones. Falling backwards upon her heels, she yanked the Strange Vision out of the water in a chaotic spray of droplets and flecks of hardened Grat run-off, thus succeeding in drenching herself in a delightful curtain-closer performance, much to her weary exasperation. 

Then it dawned on her who had just spoken.

_It's happening again! Holy Hyne, it never ends…!_

"I'm here! I'm here!" Selphie yammered, having not overlooked the urgency with which the voice had addressed her with. Shaking her head free of loose drips, she quickly stood and looked around her, only half hoping to match a body to the voice. "Who are you? What do you want? Is something wrong?" 

_:Yes…! By Hyne, I don't know what to do…! I… look, you have to trust me, you must, please promise me this!:_

"Whoa! Wha… h-hey, I don't even know who you are!" Selphie blurted out, noticeably taken aback by the strident string of words that had been hurtled down her magic channels like chunks of concrete, bashing heavily against the walls of her skull with an almost painful resonance. "What's going on?"

_:She's distracted… alright… trust me… believe… this is Ellone… don't ask how or why yet, but you must believe that it is me, and I would never harm you like she would! I'd never harm Squall either, please believe me!:_

"Ellone?!" Selphie all but fairly screeched as she recoiled in astonishment, but the now identified dream-speaker barrelled on impatiently without a break in momentum. 

_:Squall's here, he's not far from you… oh Hyne, she's… please, go and help him! I can't stop her anymore, not without your help! It's driving me mad…! I feel so helpless…:_

Ellone's voice fractured as her composure evidently crumbled, trailing off into a morbid silence. Selphie however, recovering her own composure with yet another extraordinary display of resilience, spoke demandingly into the empty air, her hands gripped tightly once more around the shafts of the Strange Vision in lieu of offensive confrontation. "Show me where!" 

_:I'll guide you… and… and I'll try to help you… I'm very weak, but I'll do my best…:_

"Just remember, you have one _heck_ of a lot of explaining to do after this!" Selphie said fixedly, giving the Strange Vision a final tug to shed the last drops of water off its sleek surface. The links of the finely crafted chain clanked together in unison, growing taut and then slack as Selphie expertly loosened the weapon from its watery film. Sparkling with a newly-washed shimmer, the overhead light catching off the subtle edges of engraved runic symbols and two lethal aerodynamic lengths of parallel batons, the Strange Vision was more than ready for the commencement of battle, and its wielder was more than willing to instigate one…

_I have so many questions… so many things to ask, that I don't know where to start… _Selphie's thoughts were almost effectively drowned out by the dull pummelling of her heels against the wooden boards of the rickety bridge as she broke into a break-neck sprint. The stagnant, muggy air of the Training Centre flowed backwards against her face, whipping her brown bangs out of her eyes and across her smooth brow. _But they'll have to wait… Squall's in trouble… and if he's gotten himself into a fix, then it must be serious! It makes me wonder about my own chances…_

Gulping back those far from encouraging thoughts, Selphie forced herself to focus on calming her inner core, a hard enough task when her stomach was bouncing crazily with the rhythm of her pounding gait. "Ellone, where to?" 

--------------------

A lone Grat munched placidly on the remnants of an old and decaying meal within the safe confines of a sheltered clearing, its multiple legs gathering strips of black carrion from the bleached bones of the all but unidentifiable remains before it. Although mostly mesmerised with the activity, its tracking eyes still blinked wetly as it espied an unusually punt-sized blur of movement whipping past the outer tree line before vanishing as quickly as it had been noticed, a movement supplemented by a chorus of snapping twigs, crackling leaves and kicked up clods of earth… if the Grat were born with shoulders, it might have used them to shrug, but having been born without, the beast simply made do with tuning its attention back to its unappealing supper.   

*** * ***  

Yeeeesh, and there we have it! This chapter has been completed at last! *Collapses from exhaustion* X__X;; Once again, I'm very sorry that it took so long in coming, and I'll see if I can make sure the next chapter will be up a little quicker, although I'll definitely be needing to think about how to tackle the next instalment in a way which doesn't look… well, stupid. XD And as a disclaimer, no Grats were harmed in the making of this chapter, so get off my back, RSPCA! O___O XD 

Rinoa fans probably won't be liking what I have in store for her from here on in, so don't say I didn't warn you… O_- anti-Rinoa fans however, rejoice! =P ^.^;; 

Coming up next: Slice and dice time, with a confrontation that will surely involve resorting to fists (or sticks of death!) =P Be here next time to see Selphie in action!__


	10. Revelations

Well, firstly, yet another apology on my part for taking so long again to update – it's taking one heck of a lot longer to get each chapter ready because I'm no longer working off the story parts that I saved from my stint on that FF8 continuation board I was talking about in the first chapter, not to mention I have a tendency to ramble…. O.O;;; I was intending for this chapter to contain both Squall and Selphie's POVs, but after looking at their combined length so far (6000+ words, which equals out to nearly 10 pages X___X) I decided to slice them up, so Selphie's Shinobou duel will have to wait until the next chapter! ^.^;;;; (I'm nearly done writing it up anyway, I've been working on these two chapters almost non stop these past two days and nights….)  

Explanations aside, this chapter will FINALLY outlay what's going to happen from here on and will give you a hint as to what direction I'm going to make this story go in – the Squalfie shall be unavoidable, mwahaha! XD Rinoa fans, beware, this is not the Rinoa that you know… O__- and don't expect me to be very sympathetic to her later on, after what she's putting Squall through in the following sequence of events… U_U well, I'll meet you guys and gals at the end with more of my thoughts!

****

**CHAPTER 9 – Revelations:**

It was hard… so many emotions, so many reactions, so many bitter words that were howling to be uttered, yet Squall felt his body strangely shutting down, becoming unresponsive and slack, while his thought stream had congealed to a sluggish pace, his mind feeling as thick as gooey syrup. It was happening all over again… reduced to nothing before that voice and persona, unable to fight the irresistible attraction that still lay dormant beneath a weakening slab of detestation… so… _unwilling _to fight it… the promise of the sugary nectar that was the heady high of love… _once was yours… drank your fill… got you hooked… _warring with the rancid aftertaste of denial, the days and nights of endless loathing and contempt which might be more fitted for a sulking child deprived of its candy than the coldly indifferent Commander of a military syndicate. Cheeks aflame with chagrin and unwanted flutters of emotional attachment, Squall was far too bewildered by the events that had exploded around his persona to formulate coherent thoughts or words to express the bedlam of his insides… 

_… not to mention… I might as well be trussed as a turkey for all the progress I'm making… _the reality of his situation served to swing Squall's senses back to solid ground, and he automatically felt his temper flare like a budding bonfire doused with kerosene.As futile as his previous attempts had proven, Squall nonetheless heaved himself fitfully against the invisible manacles anchoring him off the ground yet again, twisting the pillar of his spine almost painfully against the unyielding clutch enclosed around his limbs, but only succeeded in straining several tendons at the one time while additionally planting the niggling annoyance of a fresh headache in his temple. Voicing his frustration and bruised pride with a venomous string of curses, there was not much else that he could do, and the newly identified Rinoa wasted no time in pointing this out with a slightly bored edge to her words.

:Don't fight me, Squall. If I have to beat some sense into you, then so be it. You of all people should know the cost of raising a sword to one such as myself.:

She was certainly smug, languidly veiling the threat with a fine coat of purred honey. Adding insult to injury, an ironically gentle caress stroked Squall's snarling psyche with a fearless touch which he had no choice but to tolerate, albeit through grinding teeth… 

_How could I let this happen again?! _Squall's mind voice was practically thrashing in erratic throes as he felt himself melting into something pliable at the command of such a deceivably tender mental hand. It had been so long… so long since those halcyon days of golden mornings, flowering laughter and fleeting promises of teeth-rotting courtship…

_I… I never realised how much I… missed it. _

Don't lie.

……

Try again… 

_…h-how much I've missed…_

……?

Admit it.

_Her._

NO! Squall fearfully bent his traitorous contemplations inwards in the manner of a threatened porcupine, a move that he had repeated so many times throughout the course of his short life that the action was as spontaneous as drawing breath and equally as perfected. Huddled in a shell of his own making, licking wounds that had never healed, this was where he felt safe… in control… running an endless marathon of detachment from that which relentlessly hounded his back… _don't think about it. I refuse to think about it. She's nothing to you. Nothing. Absolutely nothing nothing nothing…_

:As much fun as this is, I'm not here to kill you. Take solace in that, if you will.:

Squall's delirious mantra broke apart with a brittle snap as Rinoa smoothly interjected his fuddled thoughts like a cooling white wind. 

:As a matter of fact Squall, I'm here to bargain with you.:

_…'the Hell?!_

"What the shit would I want from you?" Squall blurted hoarsely into the vacant air, having finally regained some former power of speech and feeling himself only growing more confused by the increasing seconds. _I absolutely hate feeling unsure… but that's the way it always was with you, Rinoa… I never really knew you. Judging by what's happening now, I guess I was right. 'Never thought you'd sink to this… can't believe it. Can't believe it… or won't? Shutup, just shutup… don't think about it… _

Laughter again, taking root in the base of his mind and rising like a newly sprouted shoot. 

:You're such a proud little rat sometimes, you know that? Too easy. I'll spare you my lengthy response… you look uncomfortable enough as it is.:

Rinoa's rediscovered mirth suddenly shrivelled and shrunk as quickly as it had blossomed, and when she spoke again, her voice was as sharply edged as freshly chiselled ice. 

:I'm going to lay the facts out as they are, and for Ellone's sake, you had better listen – to cut a long story short, your precious Esthar is the newest addition to Galbadia's list of provinces. That includes the citizenry, not to mention all the government factions and of course, the office of presidency. I'll admit that you're rather intelligent, Squall, so I trust I don't think I have to explain the implications of the latter?:

Silence.

:I'll take that as a yes. Secondly, there is of course the matter of Ellone.:

Silence.

:Nothing to say to that? You surprise me. I certainly hope that you two haven't grown as distant as you make out to be… for her sake, of course. This would probably be an appropriate time to point out that I have no qualms with the idea of disposing of your childhood chum should you be… how to say…? _Difficult _with carrying out what I'm about to propose on behalf of my home nation. Trust me Squall, we're not asking for much. We're imperialistic, but even we know how and where to draw the line after all…:

There was an… incessant buzzing singing a monotonous whine within Squall's ears, powerful enough to deflect the rest of Rinoa's matter-of-fact remarks, delivered as naturally as if she were merely describing tomorrow's weather, accompanied by a roaring white wave of noise which succeeded in drowning out anything else she might have had to say. It was positively chilling to endure, yet at the same time a bilious sort of anger was calmly threading a lazy path through Squall's captured limbs… an anger that he had never experienced before, one that belied nothing of its smouldering core on his outer persona yet was festering maddeningly inside with an intensity which was practically stewing the marrow within his bones. Rinoa's words spiralled like driftwood into this dangerously heated forge, feeding it with nourishing strength, cultivating its reckless crackle and willing the licking flames higher and higher… slowly, gradually, the heart of this charged kiln expanded, stretching elongated claws charged with a crushing and ultimately awesome power through every fibre of Squall's inner being, filling him and making him swell… 

:!!!:

Alarm.

"Y-you… _b-b-bitch…_" Squall rasped unsteadily, his shuttered eyes suddenly flinging themselves open wide as they swirled with storm tinted flames. The build-up of the unexpected internal Limit was constricting his throat, wobbling his speech and sending his blazing eyes tracking crazily towards the back of his head… broiling muscles twitching with an onslaught of jarring spasms, Squall felt Rinoa's manacles fiercely respond, rising up to resist the crumbling floodgate of power that was threatening to erupt from the sweating pores of his skin…

… a… falter…

:NO!:

It seemed as though twenty pairs of hands had chosen at that moment to clamp steel plated fingers around Squall's budding might, wrestling down upon his luminescent body with a brutal application of weight that was virtually shoving the regurgitating strength back whence it came, smothering the unworldly glow that was emanating from below the blanket of his blood and bone. He chose to roar then, a lion's affront etched frighteningly clear across the black and blue tempest that was his face, his wild mane of hair flung back against his scalp and then forwards again to break apart into multiple tassels through his lashes. But something shifted within his mind all the same, a foreign body that had not been invited yet had somehow wedged its way between a crack in the door, a presence that was sweeping through his fiery thoughts upon silent ebony wings, untouched and unblemished by the booming firestorm blowing up the path before it… weaving in, around and out of the exploding obstacles surrounding it, plunging deeper and deeper until it bore down upon the blindingly bright molten core with an arrow-like trajectory… a breach of the corona…

… and then a final smothering swish of raven coloured breath, a blast of glacial proportions.

Pause.

The white noise tentatively ebbed and subsided slightly, filling Squall's ears with nothing but his punctuated sobbing breath.  

… still, beneath the icy hand of shadowy domination, the core writhed and squirmed under the agony of unbearably suppressed strength…

:Hold that thought.:

Her voice, grim and gritty, coiled tightly and securely around Squall's raving thoughts, its scales as wintry and dampening as an unfeeling kiss. He might have winced if he wasn't feeling as powerfully ionised as he felt at the time, and so all he could settle for was a warning gnash of teeth.  

:Don't. Screw. With. Me.:

The Sorceress's venomous hiss burned with an acidic bite against Squall's already inflamed senses, knocking back the remainder of his barricades and fortifications with the sheer force of sour choler, the words forcefully torn out of her throat as though she were ripping her teeth through beef jerky. The smouldering torch of Squall's defiance involuntarily flinched from Rinoa's displeasure, and beneath the choking chains of the twenty pairs of ethereal hands, he felt his cheeks tingle with the shame of his impending submission…

:No more silly games, Squall Leonhart, no matter how amusing it might be for me. This time, you _will _hear me out, and _you _are going to float there and _like_ it.:

The effort of restraining her temper seemed to be causing Rinoa's mind voice to adopt a more breathless quality, a welcome change from the impassive and trimmed sense of self-satisfaction that had previously been radiating from her speech. Squall permitted a weak smirk to tilt a corner of his pursed lips, even as he struggled to stomach the terrible protesting fire of his flailing Limit as it wriggled fitfully against Rinoa's darkly plumed mental hand. _You always had a short fuse, shorter even than mine… easy to goad… a fault that might come at an advantage for me if we ever come to blows again…_

:These are the basic conditions Galbadia demands of your precious Garden in exchange for the safety of the entire Esthar population, including its President, government advisory boards and of course, everyone's favourite darling, Ellone…:

Yet another pause…

… a hesitant break of momentum that was enough for the inklings of a hunch to start clotting together within Squall's thoughts, giving way to the conception of a suspicion.

_Is she… reading from something… or… being dictated to?_

_……_

_Who else is there with her? _

:… you, Squall Leonhart, will journey to the city of Esthar using any form of public, land and beast-powered transport that you wish, but you will _not_ make use of any manner of aviation craft in your travels, which includes the mobility of Balamb Garden. Arm yourself however you choose to, we assure you that no matter how well or how little you build your arsenal, it will have absolutely no bearing on your journey's end…:

_A… journey? By myself? Whatever the hell for?_

:It should be emphasised that you, Squall Leonhart, are not the primary focus of this expedition. Rather, you are to serve as an escort.:

_Escort…?!_

The bombshell dropped, amid a guttural explosion of shrapnel shock and dumbfounded disbelief.

:You will escort the SeeD known by the name of Selphie Tilmitt to the city of Esthar, guarding this individual with the utmost of your strength and skill and in cases most extreme, with your life. Know now that the untimely demise of Ms. Tilmitt before her appointed surrendering into Galbadian custody will result in severe repercussions for not only the captured citizenry of the city of Esthar, but additionally for the continuous welfare of the military faction, Balamb Garden and whomever else the nation of Galbadia chooses to punish for your incompetence. You, under the service of Galbadia, have no ground upon which to question the motives of your superior master, and likewise, the nation of Galbadia has no grounds upon which to answer any question you may pose.:

_Selphie…?! Guarding… her?! But… how… why?! I…I…_

For a few gratifying seconds, Squall was completely baffled enough to momentarily forget the trying predicament that he was currently entangled in as he savoured the full meaning and implications of what had just been laid out before him… _why… this sudden fixation with Selphie, of all people?! That… that Galbadia would be willing to decimate the lives of thousands of hostages and innocent bystanders to ensure her safety is just… outrageous. Simply, utterly outrageous. I don't understand… what this has to do with me, as well. Why me? Why her? Why… everything?! I just don't know what the hell is going on anymore!_

:Now Squall, was that so bad? It's such a nice change to actually have to listen to others for once, isn't it, instead of just your own little prattlings. Hopefully, you've gathered by now that Galbadia is solidly serious, and I, acting on behalf of Galbadia, won't hesitate to set a few examples to demonstrate that we truly do mean business. Ellone's abilities are so very helpful in that department… you've had an ample taste of what I can do once I tap into her potential, and I daresay Selphie's somewhat recovered from the little blow I dealt her this evening…:

Rinoa broke off to giggle impishly, a sound which grated with an irksome friction against Squall's already frayed nerves. :I certainly hope I wasn't too hard on her…: 

"What the hell did you do to her?" Squall demanded through clenched jaws, his words whistling through the gaps between his bared teeth.

:Already taking up your new assignment with great gusto? Technically, you're only obliged to defend Selphie from the onset of dawn, but you've never been one to half-bake any sort of project, have you? I admire that about you, I really do. Why, I doubt we could have found a better candidate for the job, no one as noble and as manly…:

"Shut up. Just _shut up_," Squall spat like an irate wildcat, hardly in the mood to be spoon-fed such pointless and mocking flattery. Undeterred, and like a snake slithering underfoot, that achingly familiar mental caress curled deceptively soft fingers around his bad humour despite his attempts to twist away.

:Would you rather me talk like this?: Rinoa suggested with a smile in her voice, in a direct instant converting to the sweet and mellow notes that Squall knew could only ever belong to Ellone and her alone… he gulped down a catch that had sprung up in his throat, branded with the irreconcilable knowledge that someone so undeniable close to his heart had somehow winded up… in such terrible hands… 

All pain, forgotten… 

Instead, only guilt, a heavy pendulum crashing back and forth against his conscience with perpetual motion… All of a sudden, and in a manner hardly suited to his situation, Squall was seized by a heavy surge of hollow grief and the nagging voice of inadequacy, a powerful swell of emotion which made him grateful that he was suspended in the air for fear of his knees crumbling. Six small words came to mind, flashing with garishly bright lights before his hooded eyes in a gleeful exhibit that he knew was conceived by his sin of neglect for those he cared the most for… 

_How could you let this happen? _

:I think I sound better this way, don't you agree?: Oblivious to the effect that her mimicry had had on her captive listener, Rinoa continued to gloat as she pulled the strings of her one-man pantomime. :I should've thought of this sooner, I'd have…:       

_"What ho, varlets?!"_

A crackling hullabaloo of breaking twigs and rustling foliage suddenly disrupted the sober scene, the crashing wave of the din being surfed by a gaudy yellow gadfly which effectively sliced off the remnants of Rinoa's self-congratulatory thoughts, and ensnared the full alarm and attention of the foggy-headed Squall in the half blink of an eye. The rapidly moving golden blur broke away from the back draft pushing it forwards and screeched to a sloppy halt in the slippery mud, its features coming into focus as it slowed and struck a sharply angled battle poise with twin sticks at the ready, luminous emerald eyes darting from side to side in search of an expectant enemy, while a pair of heart shaped lips impatiently blew away a loosely combed fringe from where it brushed against a mud-caked cheekbone… there was no mistaking this SeeD for any other in a crowd, clad in yellow sunshine and vertically challenged, none other than…

_Selphie?! _Squall fleetingly wondered just how many more shocks his already over-exercised heart could handle after this episode was over…_ Of all the worst times…! What the hell is she doing here?! How much does she know about what's going on? And… shit shit shit… what's Rinoa going to… _

Even as a warning shout started to gather momentum within the cavern of his gullet, a painful twinge cut a path through his head and deftly corked his line of speech as his mouth opened wide to formulate the words. __

:Not a word, Squall Leonhart. Although judging by the look on your face… it seems that we've actually found common ground for a change. I too, am somewhat… surprised to see her here…:

Squall could almost see Rinoa's brow furrow in contemplation, a trait he knew that she had picked up from him during their heady days of blissful and ignorant togetherness… he shook the image and memory away with a scowl that reflected his obvious distaste.

:This is Ellone's doing. I can feel her… she's not as weak as she made out to be after all…:

_Ellone? _Squall snapped himself out of his miserable reverie and trained his eyes upon the tense carriage of Selphie as she anchored her boots in the dirty slurry swimming through the grassy forest floor. _Are you two… working together?_

:Perhaps I should test the… forgive the pun… _limits_ of Ellone's abilities?:

Squall knew that decided tone of voice very well, having been the brunt of the consequences following its utterance on more than once occasion in the past, and a cold sweat broke out across his already flushed face even before what felt liked the taloned claws of a dusky raven scraped dangerously close to the seething inner core of his Limit…

A happy purr rumbled throughout his ears, malicious to hear and illusive as a blade swathed in velvet.  

:Come, Squall. We'll do this together – and I'll even let Ellone play too…:

*** * ***

Well, I'd Limit too if I were being teased by someone like Rinoa, you can't really blame the poor boy… XD not to worry, let's see if Selphie can save his skin! ;) So then, Squall and Selphie shall indeed be taking a little trip later down the track, and that should be rather… urm, interesting. XD More things shall be explained later as the story progresses, and I'll even throw in Rinoa's POV soon to even things out. XP The next chapter should be up relatively soon, I just need to get a couple more things in before it's ready to see the light of day. Since my holidays are coming to a close though, from now on I'll have to ask for those who are reading this to be patient… *stupid uni work, I wanna write!*** **T___T 

And lastly, some acknowledgements to those who have reviewed since my last update:

Coca-Cola – you know, I never thought of a Squall and Ellone pairing before, and I'm surprised that I never did! =P I think it's a very good idea, and I reckon you should give it a go! Who knows, you might start a new trend! ^.^

Karla – thankyou so much for giving my fic a chance! ^_^ I hope I'll be able to meet your expectations!

Zero-Vision – now THAT was a very warm welcome! :D *Hug* I really appreciate your support, and I'll do my best to keep the story going and flowing… ;) 

CTHSKI – after a call from the RSPCA, no more Grats will be subjected to such theatrical violence… ^_^;;;;; I must admit, even I felt sorry for the silly things…* XD

Mary – heh heh, yes, I got quite tired of the whole angel image as well! ^_~ I mean, c'mon, who could be THAT perfect?? *Is trying to be realistic here!* XD

Garnet – Hey, thankyou for stopping by again! *Waves* Exams are a real pain in the tush, that I heartily agree upon! Selphie action will be coming your way very very shortly! ;) 

     

     


	11. No really next time, just stay in bed

Lol, sorry, I just couldn't resist being sarcastic about the chapter title… XD *couldn't think of anything else better anyway* =P well, this will probably the last early update for a little while since I start uni again in two days time, but rest assured I'll do my best to get the next chapter up as early as I'm able. ;) 

Also, I think that this chapter marks the end of beating around the bush, since our two leading people now (sorta) know what they're gonna have to go up against, and it's about time I got a move on! *Sweatdrop* O.O;;; Actually, I'm giving any new reader the choice to just skip ahead if they don't feel like reading the earlier chapters (since those are primarily there to set the mood, get the characters moving and to get the mystery started), so if any people are just here for the Squalphie, then I'd recommend that you start reading from chapter 8 and onwards. ;) *Goes back to the prologue to put the message in*

And so without further ado, I give you Selphie! ^.^ (Text in bold are supposed to be italics, stupid uploading system is killing my italics…!!) T__T

****

**CHAPTER 10 – No really… next time, just stay in bed:**

Like a startled rabbit caught in the floodlight of an oncoming vehicle, Selphie maintained the stiff freeze of her battle posture as well as she could upon the slippery traction of the running mud, her dilated eyes never dropping from the astonishing spectacle of her superior Commander, Squall Leonhart, dangling unceremoniously by invisible skyhooks above the beaten up patch of rainforest scrub. His limbs and slender neck were splayed at awful angles from his body, enough to make her cringe with empathy, but he was indeed still alive, the fluttering movement of his rising and falling chest proof enough of that…

"Ellone? You still there?" Selphie whispered below her breath, mouth barely moving and the words not even audible to her own ears let alone strong enough to disturb her fighting stance. 

No feeble reply sounded back along her channels, the silence in her head almost as thick as the silence swirling around her, save for the occasional chirp and rustle of an insect's pilgrimage through the soggy grass. Selphie frowned, her instincts screaming cautionary counsel in garbled voices… too quiet. Everything seemed so… set up.  But still, Selphie watched and waited, taking the time to level out her rapid breathing from her reckless dash from the bridge, her fingers flexing experimentally across the polished surfaces of Adamantine resting at the ready in her palms. 

_I still don't know what I'm up against… Ellone never got to explain. _Selphie cursed her inability to pry more information from her former orphanage buddy before she had fallen out of their connection, with Selphie having only received barely sufficient directions in the duration of her short sprint from a to b. _Careful, girl. Looks like I'll have to make the first move… I'll figure it out from there – with or without Ellone._

Selphie finally slid forward, mincing her steps through the gooey mud so that she never lifted a heel but instead coasted along the soles of her boots, her gaze trained intently upon the inert figure of Squall for any indication of suspicious movement that might justify her assumption of a trap. Still nothing happened, the peace of the immediate area only disturbed by the slow movements of Selphie as she gradually closed the distance between herself and her target. Two arms-lengths away from Squall, Selphie paused in mid-stride, her hands still cocked in the air in front of her as they elevated the Strange Vision like an offering of earth and water. This close, Selphie could pick out the details of the stitching in Squall's leather jacket, the faint stirrings of the bleached white fur rimming the collar where it stroked against the swan-like curve of his exposed throat… and for the first time since her entrance, Selphie permitted her eyes to flick away from Squall to take note of a badly stained Gunblade lying half submerged in a nearby puddle of filth, its metallic lustre dimmed beneath layers of muck and in as dejected a state as its wielder. The sight was enough to make Selphie tighten her already highly-strung vigilance. 

_Steady now. I've sparred with Squall on more than one occasion, and Hyne knows he doesn't go down without a fight, a vendetta and then a blood feud where all else fails… I… wonder if I should leave and call for backup? If anything happens now, it won't be until 7:30 before… before anyone comes and finds us… _Selphie swallowed a nervous bulge that was clogging up the back of her mouth, and was aware of a certain starchy dryness that was making her tongue feel as though it were wrapped in woolly fleece…

_No! _Selphie abruptly gave herself a rigorous mental shake up, dispersing her initial trepidation with the even more imposing fear of disgrace. _I'm not afraid of anything! I'm not running from this! I'm a SeeD! SeeDs don't fear anything! Haven't you taught yourself _anything _this past hour?_

On that last admonishing note, Selphie boldly scooted up to Squall with no further hesitation, lowering the Strange Vision and letting it hang on either side of her hips, the glinting chain still stretched tautly across the front of her upper thighs. _I might as well check if he's injured, instead of just gaping like a village idiot. _

Selphie tentatively stretched out a trembling hand towards Squall's floppy pillar of a neck, still not fully trusting the convenience of finding her Commander in such a vulnerable pose within one of the remotest areas of Garden, but in spite of that, reaching out all the same. The pads of her fingertips eventually traversed the space between themselves and the scruff of Squall's neck, warily brushing against pale but soft and clammy skin… a flustered outbreak of rose madder decorated Selphie's cheeks as her fingers gathered in the silky locks of brown hair clustered against Squall's nape, a blush which for once had nothing to do with self-rebuke…

_Geez Louise, I can't believe I'm actually… touching him… _the mere thought in itself was ludicrous, let alone the action, yet Selphie unwittingly found herself cupping the back of Squall's head in her hand, levering his drooping head upwards into a more viewable and comfortable position, trying to ignore the confusing and alien touch of his messy tousle of hair as the tresses attempted to entangle her fingers. _This is like… petting a lion. You don't touch lions! This feels so weird… I'm glad no one else is here to see this, they'd be getting really narky ideas…_

Selphie swallowed back the same nervous lump for the second time as she leaned forward on the tips of her toes to peer into Squall's now upturned face. Never before had she dared to invade the personal space of her Commander, so severely he guarded it, and now here she was actually having the gall to step over the debris of his defences to gawk stupidly into a face that she had never really seen except from afar… __

_Don't wake up now… please don't wake up now… _Selphie silently pleaded as she tucked the two arms of her Strange Vision between her knees, freeing up her second hand to carefully brush the wayward bangs away from where they concealed Squall's half closed eyes, now rendering the complete set of his facial features visible. The deep chasm of his cleanly sliced scar, faded over time into a hue akin to diluted copper, jumped out of his face like white on black, angling between a pair of slender down-turned brows and cutting across the apex of a finely honed nose. His lips, unusually small at close range, were parted ever so slightly as he inhaled and exhaled with a watery rhythm, while the chiselled point of his chin spoke wonders of an obdurate countenance that seemed fitting for Squall's leading station. Selphie's eyes flitted quickly across each of these recognisable features, picking up no trace of injury or abrasion in the first instance, yet for some strange – and slowly mortifying – reason, she found herself looking long and curiously into this aesthetic face, far longer than what would ever be considered polite if Squall were conscious enough to point out that fact…

_It's… so odd. I've grown up with this guy, we've been on missions and shared the madness of the past year with both of us living to sell off the tale… but how much do I really know about him? He seemed to open up for a little while after we'd all settled back down into our normal routines, but then again, he had Rinoa at the time. After she called everything off and headed back to Deling City, Squall just seemed to… go into a relapse. Is that how I should put it…? I dunno. He never talked about it, so there wasn't much we could do to help him… this is probably the first time in ages that any of us have been this close to him, since he's always shut up in his own little world in that stupid office._

Her head tilted to one side, Selphie continued to scrutinise Squall's stern but passive facial aspects with a pondering gaze, milking her unexpected close encounter with the third kind as best as she could.

_I wonder what makes you tick? What music do you move to? Who… are you…?_

A face that no doubt had left a myriad of broken hearts in its wake, a temperament as receiving as a granite boulder… Squall Leonhart both enticed and repelled, giving nothing and receiving nothing in return, yet he seemed to prefer leaving it at that… seemingly restful now in unnatural slumber, it was still impossible to read anything about him that might surrender a clue as to what each sedimentary layer of stone of his thoughts contained… Selphie could only shake her head in a sheepish acceptance of her failed endeavour. 

Almost immediately however, she shook her head once more but more vigorously this time, eyes squeezed shut in obvious exasperation as she silently berated herself for losing sight of the bigger picture…

_What the hell do you think you're doing, ogling Squall like that?! Have you already forgotten _why _you came in the first place? The poor man needs help, for crying out loud! At least try and get him free! Sheesh…_

Jerking her priorities back into their proper order after a mental splash of cold water, Selphie broke out of her musing stupor and removed her vacuous stare from Squall's face, instead focusing on his strangely twisted limbs from where they sprouted out of his leather-clad torso and trailed away at rigid angles into empty space. Selphie grimaced at the sight, yet at the same time was baffled by how on earth Squall was being suspended in such a fashion… his body was deathly still, save for the mild indication of his unbroken breathing, giving his whole person the impression of being chiselled straight out of a block of vacant air. He did not sway along any of the artificial currents of wind circulating through the training centre, yet the way in which his persona was positioned seemed to make any lack of movement from outside forces impossible… if Selphie didn't know any better, she would've considered Squall to have suffered a bout of petrification, but that diagnosis would've explained little else apart from his inflexible plight. She was frowning mightily now as she closed an exploratory hand around Squall's left upper arm, immediately startled by how incredibly tense his muscles were beneath their sheath of skin, but nonetheless, gave an uncertain tug. She was hardly surprised by her first ultimate failure to stir any sort of motion out of the comatose Commander and pulled harder, but once again met with no results. 

"Righty-o," Selphie muttered decidedly, wiping her sweaty palm against the fabric of her dress before enclosing both of her hands firmly around Squall's stubbornly stiff arm. Bracing herself, one foot lodged securely in the drying mud and the other stretched out behind her, Selphie heaved with all the might that she could muster in her petite frame, her fingers wound tightly around the circumference of Squall's arm so that they puckered the leather. Biting her teeth together with the strain, Selphie still refused to relinquish her hold, even as she sensed the heels of her boots sinking deep into the holes that they were boring in the mud. 

"Geez, lay off the hotdogs for a little while, why don't you?" Selphie griped, feeling her grip starting to slacken and threatening to lay all her best efforts to waste. Not a hairbreadth of muscle had stirred, for all that she had tried to make it so, and her whole venture was rapidly spiralling into something of a lost cause. Sighing, Selphie released Squall, taking a moment to rub her hands. Her eyes rested languidly on a nearby and unimportant fern as she felt her circulation gradually restored, turning over any new resolution to the current problem as they came to mind… eyes focusing first on the fern and shifting slowly across the pitted mire that was the clearing, grazing over the solidified figure of Squall, coming to rest on the dirty scuffed toes of her well-worn boots, between which rested the twin shafts of the Strange Vision where she had obliviously permitted it to slide away from the grip of her knees.    

_Dirty again… right after I just washed you. _Selphie clicked her tongue, rolling her green gaze skywards as she bent to retrieve her prized possession.

!!!

Panic coursed through her veins like quick silver, whipping her stooped form back into a stiff vertical stance even as the ringing pealing throughout the catacombs of her head quickened to raging new heights… Selphie gasped, bringing her hands up to her ears in a futile attempt to dilute the noise, but even before she executed the motion she knew that this was no physical sound breaching the airwaves around her, something that could not be blocked or ignored…

_Magic! All around!_

Disorientated, Selphie staggered backwards with a heavy step, her face distorted with the pressure building up within her magic channels and exerting itself against her mind like a merciless, crushing fist. There was little leeway for her to adjust to the sudden change of events; even as Selphie curled tightly into herself to form a compact SeeD ball against the supernatural onslaught, a white hot flash of blinding light unexpectedly imploded before her vision, enveloping her sight with a white wall of zero invisibility and coaxing an alarmed exclamation from her lips. Selphie plunged her head into the shady cavity of her tightly joined arms, instinctively lurching away from the source of her discomfort with unsteady steps… the backs of her heels abruptly slammed into what felt like a solid wall of rock and she stumbled, her right shoulder taking the full brunt of her body's chance meeting with the marshy ground. Peering backwards through the white luminosity, Selphie marked the inconveniently positioned root erupting out of the mud which was currently prodding her roughly in the leg, before scrabbling messily onto her hands and knees.

As Selphie recovered as best as she could from her tumble, the severe radiance seemed to recede for a moment, curving inwards in a multitude of graceful arches to concentrate on a single focal point amid a fiery cloud of starburst and snapping sparks…

Shielding her pained eyes with the back of a grubby hand, Selphie squinted as best as she could through the driving storm of raining light, pinpointing almost instantaneously a blazing black form that could only be Squall, smudged and undefinable around the edges behind a protective drapery of falling light…

_Well, I hope you'll learn from this little experience if you get out of it alive… always trust your gut instinct! _Not that it was really that much of a bolt from the blue that she had been set up, or that her suspicions regarding Squall had been affirmed, but Selphie still found room to discipline herself for not having taken action sooner. There was no time left in the present for self evaluation – the pressure upon her magic channels suddenly alleviated and there was now a noted shift in the energies streaming through her flying hair and across her crouching form… the parabolas of light forming the cloister of illumination above Selphie's head abruptly chose to spiral crazily out of formation towards a specified point on the ground, the impact of the en masse strands of bright brilliance splitting the surrounding earth so that it bucked like a rogue bronco. Selphie yelped as she felt her whole body lurch up into the air, hanging in space for a heartbeat before gravity kicked in to slam her back down again into a stinking puddle of glop. She was feeling thoroughly cantankerous by this point, with even the good-natured SeeD hardly appreciating being reduced to something as flimsy as a blown about leaf caught in an updraft. Selphie bit back her annoyance however, not taking the risk of diverting her attention from the writhing bands of light before her, twisting themselves into what she assumed would soon be a recognisable shape, and hell bent on giving her a hard time no less. Mesmerised, Selphie groped blindly at her belt for the reassuring presence of the Strange Vision, emitting an ugly curse as her hands patted against not the cool touch of Adamantine, but at the empty leather sling strapped at her side. 

_Damn it! We just had to drop it right next to public enemy number one! _Selphie bit her bottom lip as she continued to stare at the blossoming profile taking shape before her very eyes, noting how the light had taken on a runny quality that was flowing slickly across innumerable layers… and with a small start and widening eyes, Selphie all at once discerned the figure that was miraculously materialising from the sluicing mercury radiance which was all too soon complete for Selphie's liking… 

_Holy heck. It's me._

Even her mind voice fell flat in reaction to the sheer audacity. However, no amount of denial and head shaking could eradicate the shimmering clone of the previously one and only Selphie Tilmitt, currently balanced expertly on the tips of its toes in a fighting stance that the original Selphie was only too familiar with, and armed with equally all too familiar twin sticks of glossy death positioned just so in the air to be set up for a devastatingly braining blow…

Time seemed to slow to a sultry and oppressive pace as green eyes met green eyes across the battered clearing, the owner of one pair currently submerged to the wrists in a pool of lapping brown goo, while the owner of the remaining pair held herself up with a carbon copy of natural grace stolen from her original mould, watching and waiting at her end of the makeshift battle field. The mud-caked Selphie scraped away her initial bemusement as she drank in and digested the unbelievable sight of her duplicate ready to dish out punishment to its maker, but then with some immediate relief observing the telltale flecks of coloured light drifting away from the sharp joints of the apparition and dissipating in the air like snowflakes in a campfire. 

_Another harmless phantom… there's nothing to fear. It'll pass straight through me, just like the others._

With that bolstering thought, Selphie permitted herself to relax and finally decided to pick herself up from where she had fallen last, shaking off the clinging drops of polluted water that coated her running arms like thinned-out oil as she regained her feet. The clone tensed at the sudden movement and brought its weapon further to the front, more scraps of colour breaking away from the angles of its glowering face.

"Oh pish, what's up with you, grumpy guts?" Selphie said dismissively without even looking up, evidently more engrossed with the task of picking out stray strands of green shoots from the fibres of her dress. Her doppelganger did not reply or give any sign of having registered what had just been said, choosing instead to skip forward in little leaps and bounds, mouth set in a grimly straight line as it moulted a colourful light path with its bouncing motion. 

Selphie permitted the image a bored glance as it approached, flicking a chunk of hardened mud away from one of her shoulder straps while digging with a fingernail into the dirty buckle. "Nothing beats the real deal, haven't you figured that out yet?" she enquired loudly of the empty air, "Though I'm really flattered that you got the waistline just that little bit smaller, whoever you are, you must be a patron of the great arts… I'm so flattered, trul…"

The 'twack' was acknowledged by Selphie's ears mere microseconds before the ensuing collision of Adamantine and shinbone that had created such a sound, with the clank of the links of a metallic chain coming in at a _very_ close second. Pain, scoring an excruciating path of heated needles up the length of her right leg, suddenly unable to support the weight of the body resting above it and thus buckling under the unbearable burden… for an unacceptable fourth time in the space of twenty four hours, Selphie felt herself becoming the scapegoat of gravity yet again as she crashed to her knees, the muscles of her face wound tightly enough to properly express the sensation of the smarting hurt that was shooting up her leg like heat from a glowing ember…

The agony climaxed with a scalding intensity before sliding back into a slightly weaker throb, but even that slightly milder ache was enough to cajole the sweat from Selphie's temples, and she gasped harshly as she released her tightly interwoven fingers from where they hugged her injured shin. 

"That's _gotta_ hoit," she muttered beneath a hissed intake of breath as another wave of pain crashed against her senses with a strength that seemed fitting for the massive red and blue blotch that was staining the skin of her limb like an ink spill spreading across floor boards. No broken bones, Selphie acknowledged in a bid to raise her awareness of some sort of good fortune, but apart from that, there was now hardly anything else to not be strongly concerned about…

_It's solid. That's just great, real great. Let your guard down for just a few moments and wind up eating dirt… but we don't have time to kick ourselves now, save it for later. Things are getting too hairy to be ignored, and we can also worry about how the apparition became real some other time. What we need now is to bring it down, and for that, we'll need a weapon… the one over there looks fine to me._

Selphie was never one for slow deliberation or for slow movements, and when the two were blended together, the result was one which saw an immobile, seemingly crippled SeeD reduced to a kneeling heap in the dirt suddenly exploding into life and energy with a nifty little whoop and yell. The tensely wound energy that Selphie had been bunching together in the depths of her good leg released like a sprung elastic band, propelling her forwards in a swift, smooth dive through the air that was angling directly towards her expectant clone whose Shinobou was still inclined at an offensive angle and already swinging into action as Selphie closed the short strip of land between them with her rapid flight. She felt the top of her head reach the zenith of her dive before her body automatically curved back towards the ground, heard the warning clink of a Shinobou about to initiate another damaging swing and then the inevitable swish of one aerodynamic shaft slicing an effortless course through the unresisting air…

_GO!_

Whether or not the subsequent acrobatic routine was due to a welcome spurt of adrenaline or the result of Selphie playing her cards right did not really matter; all that was important was that the SeeD Elite, fully elongated in the air like a leaping doe one second before bundling herself into a compact ball, hit the ground 'running' as it were - crashing and rolling through the tufts of grass and ditches in the ground beneath the blurred arc of a Shinobou baton as it whistled towards the patch of air through which Selphie had been sailing only moments before. For a split second, Selphie felt the breeze of the swooping weapon rasp against the bare skin of her curved neck like a lunging bird of prey, before the speed of her forward roll carried her safely away from the soaring, dipping threat. Gathering clumps of dirt and grass like a bizarre yellow snowball, Selphie cut a terribly messy path towards her goal, amazingly finding time within the dizzy whirlwind of melting scenery and flying earth to wonder how the hell she was going to get all the gunk out of her hair in the morning…

_Now! _Selphie unfurled her compact limbs in an instance on the chance that she had managed to convey herself both far enough from her opponent and close enough to her estranged weapon, expertly flinging her legs out beneath her while swivelling her head over her shoulder – Selphie's eyes immediately homed in on the pair of Adamantine rods entwined together on the ground only a few inches away from the floating figure of Squall, who was currently aflame with an inferno of lapping, swirling light and seemed to be only getting brighter as she fritted away more precious minutes…

**But I can't help him until I deal with that pathetic phony behind me…**

As though on cue, Selphie's hearing picked up on the rustling of fabric and the scrape of leather boots, key indications of a person turning on the spot to face whatever lay behind them. 

"Hang in there, Squall!" Selphie yelled in the hope that despite what ever type of turmoil the Commander was finding himself victim to, there might still be a chance that a fragment of his senses was still capable of recognition – on that parting note, Selphie pounced upon the Strange Vision, flipping the sticks smoothly into the air and snatching each in mid-fall around the middle with the force of a thunderclap. Her fingers moulded against the glassy curvature of each branch of the weapon without any necessary mental command, and with another heady rush of adrenaline, Selphie blocked out the niggling tenderness of her swelling bruise and wounded shoulder as she bent her knees into a primed crouch, and settled her blazing green eyes upon her glimmering double who was gambolling towards her. Re-armed and no doubt highly dangerous, Selphie felt both complete and raring to go, fully confident in her abilities to take down a mirror image whose strengths and weaknesses were – quite literally – close to her heart.     

"C'mon! Just try!" Selphie raged and showed her teeth, clashing the solid bars in her hands together with a wordless challenge that still spoke wonders of the upright defiance that was leaking from her wrap of skin like a provoking musk. Ever obliging, the clone did just that, setting up another bout of swinging death on a circuit that had started at the small of its back and was climbing rapidly towards the space between the original Selphie's jovial eyes. The SeeD had been anticipating such a move and yanked herself backwards, her natural flexibility throwing her upper back past her thighs as the flickering imitation of a Shinobou swerved harmlessly over the peak of her nose. Like a bent sapling released by its captor's hands, Selphie snapped back into her original stance with a nonplussed expression gracing her face which was quickly replaced with a goading laugh. 

"My turn!" she quipped cheerfully, whipping the Strange Vision out from behind her back and tugging the tinkling chain with a menacing rattle. Even below its newly acquired coat of grime, the winking lustre of the Adamantine seemed to be laughing along with its mistress as Selphie inclined the two arms at a new angle, shifting her hands into an equally new position across the surfaces. 

**Let's see how well we both do at close quarter fighting… no more stupid swinging, neither of us is a Wendigo after all!**

Selphie's alter-ego hadn't fully recovered from its failed attack, and so as the original Selphie threw herself towards it, Strange Vision clasped firmly in both hands with the intention of ramming the clone like two charging bulls, the duplicate was only able to bring its weapon up in time to meet the blow head-on with only half of its artificial strength supporting its straining wrists. The Strange Vision ground viciously against the vaguely transparent Shinobou barring its way, striking up not sparks but chips of coloured light as the friction grew too immense.

Staring hard into the vacant eyes of her imitation, a face that was her own in every way but for the absence of the vein of stubborn and perky resilience running beneath the skin which commonly flooded to the surface in everyday life, Selphie felt a prickling heat of outrage making the space between her shoulder blades itch with inner fire. A surge of extra strength from the sour taste of the insult boosted the weight that she was applying through the Strange Vision, and she felt the chipped Shinobou underneath falter as the clone found itself forced to give ground to the overbearing encumbrance that was threatening to cleave each arm of its weapon in two. It was enough for Selphie, who pulled back and stormed forward again in the space of a second; in the manner of a descending baseball bat, she brought both sticks down upon the duplicate's Shinobou with a mighty and ferocious crack. That too, was enough for the clone, who lurched and crumbled underneath the massive force of the blow and fell back by more than a few steps, legs wobbling crazily and bleeding scraps of colour from all areas of its glowing body like fraying needlework.

Mercilessly, Selphie closed the opened area between herself and her mirror image with the intention of a follow-up attack etched bluntly in the forceful green malachite of her eyes, and the Strange Vision looked equally as angry as it plunged through the air at the bidding of its owner, planting its sharpened ends squarely onto the exposed spleen of the unsuspecting clone with a consequent smash, like that of a rock shattering a window pane of glass. The impact was positively electrifying – the clone jerked with the motion, its form resisting the assault for a few tense moments before the Strange Vision successfully chewed straight through the luminous skin, travelling through the emptiness where a heart and sternum might have been arranged if the duplicate were its original, and erupting in an explosion of a fractured, weeping spectrum from the clone's lower back. 

Selphie stooped over the impaled imitation as it wriggled vainly against the sheer mineral piercing its non-existent flesh, struggling to keep a hold of the Strange Vision as the pseudo-Selphie thrashed like a landed fish unable to free itself from its imbedded hook. The original Selphie swallowed nervously, unable to push back the horror that she was feeling at the sight of… herself, in a strange sense, or at least herself as she might look if she ever came to a nasty end on the point of someone's sword… the absolute lack of emotion wrought on the duplicate's face as it writhed like a skewered snake was disturbing enough, rendering it as little more than a vessel filled with a vacuum that lacked thoughts, feelings and emotions, with even pain being little more than an estranged friend… 

_It's times like these, I should be glad that I'm my own person… _Selphie reflected as she grappled with the wobbling Strange Vision in her grasp. _I'm nobody's lackey, nobody's dispensable toy – and I hope that I'll never be reduced to one, Hyne help whoever tries…_

_:Selphie! Fall back! NOW!:_

"Ellone?!" Selphie gasped out loud, just as a burst of cloudy static came bubbling down her magical channels, a rushing torrent of sound that contained nothing but urgent cries and warnings jumbled together in an undecipherable code, before being suddenly cut short. Selphie took the hint, jerking the Strange Vision out of the clone with a dismissive carelessness that widened the yawning hole in its chest which dripped with liquid colour around the rim, and skipped away from the falling apparition as it folded into the receiving earth. Even before its flickering body met the upwards force of the ground, Selphie registered a sharp twist in the energies in her wake… there was a newfound vivacity to the feel of the air where there had once been a sluggish rhythm, as though whatever well of power had been depleted was being replenished twofold, and no warning from Ellone was needed to trigger a sense of uneasiness and increased alertness in Selphie's being, although it certainly helped…

As Selphie melted from an offensive stance into a defensive watchfulness, resting most of her weight on the balls of her heels, the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly rose… the level of power that she could sense flowing through the air was building up _far _too efficiently, stacking itself like a tower of blocks with no intention of toppling and even worse, gathering speed and momentum at the same time! Although she was almost afraid of what she would see, Selphie nonetheless swivelled around to lay her eyes on Squall…

"Holy crud," Selphie whispered hoarsely, feeling her throat constrict with the effort of breathing in the thickening air that was milling around the clearing, as oxygen and magical energies vied with each other for the same space... and it was the sight of those same energies that had compelled Selphie to speak; massive, illuminated vanes of power expanded outwards from the centre of Squall's barely fluttering chest, multiplying at a _very _alarming rate and as Selphie continued to watch with spellbound curiosity, guttering from white to black and white again with quick, warring flashes of consummation… the shadows in the surrounding area were darkening considerably as Squall continued to turn out increasingly brighter wings of light, the shadows then becoming pale and indistinct as the black hue struggled to gain the upper hand in the white furls of energy. Selphie was at a loss as to what to do, her instincts screaming for flight yet at the same time, her duties as a SeeD demanded that she fight… _but fight what?! Squall? Or whatever's eating away at him? Oh Hyne, why did we ever get out of bed to start off with…?_

_:Sel…phi…e…. Li….s…ten…:_

"Wha…?!" she exclaimed.

_Thump._

Selphie's eyes widened as the bleak sound echoed down her channels…

_Thump._

_Thump…_

"A… a heartbeat?" she asked aloud, then started coughing as the syrupy air successfully clogged her voice, forcing her to take a breather. It was most definitely a heartbeat anyway, or at least a limpid pulse, the rhythmic timbre resounding inside her head with startling clarity and even drowning out the pounding of the blood in her own ears. Having caught her breath somewhat, Selphie ventured, "Ellone? Is that you? You're cracking up…" 

Non-surprisingly, there was once again no reply, only the bleak, monotonous beat of a pumping muscle filling the void left in Ellone's wake… but not monotonous for long… it seemed to be… accelerating…? 

"Cripes!" Selphie yelled as the entire clearing flared with a blinding spout of opaque light that inflated in a circular motion from Squall's static body, and then to her deep surprise, she found herself being knocked head over heels as the light swept across her form; Selphie found herself tossed into the thankfully padded arms of a harmless shrub, but all around her, even though she momentarily could not see, the sound of breaking wood, uprooted plants and scattered leaves scraping noisily against splitting bark was almost deafening, and one hundred percent terrifying. Selphie huddled in a frightened little ball where she had fallen, feeling the silent, solid wind pummelling the breadth of each plane of her body that was open to its attack, amazed at the astonishing magnitude of pain that the gale was inflicting upon her senses that was only getting worse as the seconds ticked by. Selphie jammed her eyes shut, pushing the lids down as far as they could go, wishing that the pain would subside just for a few moments but her silent entreaty was of no avail… as the tortured sensations continued to escalate, she started to fear that at the rate it was going, she'd be torn asunder and blasted into bite-sized shavings… and still, the heartbeat continued to seethe like a runaway freight train in her ears, like the other half of some sort of ghastly duet it was performing with the bitter wind, thumping methodically in time to the white flashes that were popping in front of Selphie's closed and sheltered eyes…

_!!!_

_Wait! That's it! I…_

_Thump…_

_……_

_Thump…_

_… I'm listening to Squall… _

_Thump…_

_… his heart, it's in my head…! And… the wind… now I understand… _

It was getting difficult to think through the foggy sleet of pain that was misting up Selphie's thoughts, but she fought to keep herself conscious, knowing that it would not help her situation to collapse and surrender to the teeth of the snapping white gust…

_… or Limit. It's a Limit, I didn't realise before… Squall is in this wind, I can hear his heart in it…! Hyne, how angry must he be to unleash something like this…?! And… how is Ellone letting me hear him? Is she… connected with him too, somehow…?_

"Ellone!" Selphie croaked as she bore the brunt of yet another breathy punch across her back, "How… can I stop… this…?"

_Please answer… please answer… I don't know how much more I can take… please…_

Miraculously, something stirred in the faraway depths of Selphie's channels, like the dying echo of a footstep travelling through the bowels of an empty cave… 

_Please! Keep trying…!_

In desperation, Selphie flung out a personal line of energy towards the fading source, groping blindly in the darkness for some sort of established contact, elbowing her way through the murky pain and navigating around the thundering heartbeat that was drowning her thoughts… swallowing her whole… floundering in a black sea that was the making of Squall's pure, raw vehemence…

… a frail yet commanding grip suddenly caught the thrown line with plenty of mustered effort on its part, drawing Selphie safely away from the clutches of the frothing, ebony foam… 

Selphie could almost have sobbed with relief if the connection hadn't been so anaemic; there was no time to lose for such frivolity, and of that, Ellone was obviously aware. Selphie could only just barely recognise her presence, as insubstantial as an element and her voice abstracted into broken syllables by the domineering clamor of Squall's fiery fury…

:_G…o….for…t…he…sou…r..ce……s..he…wo…n't……let……yo…u…or…h..i.m…d…i…e…:_

_'Source'? What source?!_

_:S…qu…all……t…ak…e……hi…m……o…u…t…:_

_!!!_

_:Tr…u…st…m…e……ca…n't…h…o…ld……o…n…:_

A sharp, screaming flurry of obsidian noise suddenly sheared the flimsy connection between them, sending Selphie spiralling back into reality and the world of sensation, which thus heralded the triumphant return of pain which now felt as close-fitting as a tight shirt. Every ounce of Selphie's body was complaining from the battering it was receiving, not to mention the existing abrasions that had taken up residence on her shoulder and shin beforehand, but with an exertion that could only have been accomplished by the steeliest of wills, Selphie wrenched herself off her knees and elbows and hauled herself to her feet. Bearing herself open and vulnerable to the full force of the scalding wind, she tottered like a drunkard but still held herself steady, knowing that if she allowed herself to fall again, the temptation to remain on the ground would simply prove too appealing to resist…

The Strange Vision had somehow managed to remain enclosed in one hand, its chain fluttering behind it like a sparkling banner, and Selphie numbly wrapped her remaining hand around the twin Adamantine bars, propping the compacted weapon above one shoulder in preparation for a two handed swing. 

_Have… to stop… this… now…_

Already half dead on her feet, it didn't bother Selphie too much to scope ahead for the dark centre of the driving wind, despite the brilliant glare of white reflection that stung her shrunken pupils. It hardly compared to how the rest of her was feeling; Selphie had already decided that she wouldn't be too stunned if she were to look down at herself and see nothing but the flesh falling away from her bones. Her thoughts felt unusually light, as though one gentle puff of a breeze would send the top of her head spinning away into space, depriving her of coherent reasoning and sanity… although she suspected that such an occurrence had already taken place, for how else was she to explain what she was about to deliver to the most senior authority in Garden and her superior in all military, administrative and community state of affairs? 

Completely overwhelmed by a stupefied daze, Selphie by hook or by crook found her feet shuffling forward at an arduous pace while the rest of herself fought for each finger length of distance through the unsympathetic winds… the pounding of Squall's frantic heartbeat was still frequenting the back of her head like a chugging jackhammer, all the more incentive for Selphie to achieve her task… slowly but oh so surely, she dragged her mistreated body across the clearing towards Squall's lit up form, a length that could not have exceeded three or four metres but felt for all the more like two football fields lined up side by side. Gasping from the enormous exertion and swaying from a combination of exhaustion and the wind currents, Selphie stumbled the last few inches, nearly losing her balance for the umpteenth time that day, but finally arrayed herself in striking distance of the hovering Commander. The blast of energy that was emanating from the centre of his chest scorched across Selphie's cheeks, cutting tears from her eyes and sending her hair streaming away from her face where it winked in the white light like a newly minted copper coin. Shaking away the mental cobwebs that were congealing her thoughts and doing her best to not pass out before she had executed her action, Selphie finalised her decision, raising the clamped-together rods of the Strange Vision even as the white noise and incessant heartbeat picked up in tempo and viciousness, as though gaining some psychic inkling of Selphie's intentions. Securing her feet in the torn up dirt underneath and holding her buffeted torso steady against the snarling winds, Selphie's mind was obviously made up, no matter how greatly in principle she was opposed to what needed to be done…

"I'm sorry!" Selphie wailed, even as she swung the Strange Vision down from where it was poised above one shoulder and watched it descend with blurred velocity towards the very same head that she had been cradling only a horrifying short while ago…        

*** * ***

Aaaaahhh! Cliffhanger! XD XD I'm sorry, I couldn't resist! *Has a weak will* Don't worry too much though, Selphie knows that she'd get fired from the story if she killed her co-star… @___o *Coff* 

Something that I find ironic is that I divided the content of chapter 9 and 10 because combined, they were over 6000 words, but this chapter is actually about 6000+ words in length… XD *well, I tried* Heh heh, and I see that Zero-Vision has finally gotten an account of his own! *Stalk stalk stalk* And it's okay, I don't see you as a crazed groupie or anything like that… ^.^;; ;) Also, a thankyou to George, who has spoken up in favour of a Squalfie! ^.^

Coming up next: What are Rinoa's thoughts on what has happened so far, and what will she reveal about Galbadia's intentions? A time lapse will also occur which will cut straight to the chase of the outcome of Squall's subjection to Selphie-bashing… XD see you soon!  


	12. Enemy of mine

*Explodes and dies* @_____@

Geez Louise, I'm REALLY sorry that it's taken so long to get this next chapter up, and I'm even sorrier that it's written from… from… *urk* Rinoa's point of view…! X___X *Apologies apologies apologies* T__T Okay, first things first, before you all pack up and leave: XD This type of chapter will NOT be a very regular occurrence, so don't worry – what I felt was needed though was SOME sort of explanation as to what was going on, and I felt that the best option I had was to show you inside the mind of the enemy. As much as I'd like to resort to Rinoa bashing, *drooooooool* XD I grudgingly decided to be civil… but hopefully, this chapter will help lay out the plans which I have, and will give you a better idea of what's in store for Squall and Selphie… *nod* Also, some of the italics have been messed up during the upload, so where there is bold lettering there are supposed to be italics! ^.^;;

Well, I won't keep you, I'll have some more to say at the end of the chapter… *steps to the side*

One final note – I'll be changing the genre to 'romance' with the next chapter, so don't be looking for me in 'drama' first from here on… just so that you know where to find me! ;) *Steps to the side for real this time* XD

**CHAPTER 11 – Enemy of mine:**

_"SHIT!"_

The high pitched shout bounced across and around the bleached white surface of the walls and floor of the cavernous laboratory… and the clean solitude was shattered further as a figure clad in black and blue bolted upright from between crisply laundered sheets, mouth open wide as her lips still curled around the sour remnants of her uttered curse. The rattle of a multitude of wires snaking around her torso accompanied the swish of swept–aside cloth, followed by the hard clomp of rubber heels upon protesting tiles. 

"Rinoa! _Slow down!" _An edgy voice sounded from the far side of the vicinity, sharp and masculine with the air of one who was accustomed to being obeyed. She ignored the speaker, blinking back the roaring pain that was speeding unchecked throughout her unblemished brow. Rinoa squeezed her eyes shut and focused… something within her mind shifted, as though a bottle within her had just been unstoppered… and with a small sigh of relief, she felt the soft and heady rush of blue honeyed healing flowing through her veins, sanding away the sharpness of the pain and levelling it down to a more subdued – yet still irritating – ache.

Opening her eyes again, Rinoa finally felt ready to spare a withering dark glance for the approaching figure of General Caraway, his marching gait checked by the stiffness of the bells and whistles practically adorning his military uniform; with uncloaked distaste, she thought that it was a wonder he didn't chime with the hour… golden tassels tossed across the shadowy silk of his elaborately embroidered tunic, while his coat collar was buttoned tightly around the funnel of his neck, forcing his chin to hover cocked in mid-air at an awkward angle which gave his gaze an unusually upwards vector… surely this man with his stern yet professional aura was a walking epitome of military accomplishment, a man worthy of the title of…

A clown. A mere, military clown caught up in playing Soldier all these years, not even realising where the power lay until now... how could I acknowledge kinship with this idiot? Mother, bless your soul, what the hell did you ever see in him?

The past year had not been particularly kind to Caraway, the grey roots of his cropped mop of heavily oiled hair squirming into view, never mind the pungent aroma of expensive dye that swirled around his ears and shoulders. With a practiced eye, Rinoa noted the more pronounced lines settled across her father's forehead as he paused at her side, deep as trenches scoring a prominent path across the remotest seabed. His tanned skin, baked to a crisp brown in the heated forge that was the nation of Galbadia, seemed paler than she recalled… with some interest, Rinoa peered closely at the chiselled planes of Caraway's face as he leaned forward with paternal concern, and her eyes widened slightly as she spied the faint dustings of tanned powder upon the ridges of his cheekbones. 

_Oh my, you're vain as a cat alright… even now you can feel the aches in your joints and the creaks in your throat, but every morning, your naked face betrays you to the one person that you would never want to admit weakness to… a Sorceress cannot age, of that you're most definitely aware. It pains you, doesn't it? It pains you to have birthed something as offensive as me, yet you also know that a portion of my blessings is something that you could never share. Nearly two decades of aspiring military conquests, two decades of your life shrivelled away to nothing with the onset of sunspots and silver hair… who will respect you now, father? They will all turn on you, like colts upon a stallion past his prime, evidence of what you were scrubbed clean by evidence of what you've become._

"Rinoa…" General Caraway ventured again with a hesitant catch to his voice. A gloved hand wavered uneasily by his side, as though he were deliberating whether it was such a wise idea to touch the tight-lipped Sorceress seated rigidly before him. Rinoa suddenly remembered _why_ it was that she was feeling extremely put-off, and the heated scowl that she had been previously wearing returned to mar her otherwise finely-crafted features as the memories came flooding back. 

"Don't just _stand _there! Help me out of these things!" she snapped, rolling her eyes in childish frustration. She tore a cluster of coloured wires away from where they hugged against the fabric of her woollen cloak, and with equal force, ripped away another closely entwined bunch from where they encircled her brow like a blue and red tiara. The machinery to which the numerous cords were connected shook unsteadily as the wires were flung carelessly in various directions by a pair of angry hands.

"Rinoa, that's expensive technology," Caraway interjected with a reprimanding tone, stooping to collect the fallen wires almost as quickly as they were being dropped, "We can't afford to have anything here damaged in the immediate frame of time that we've allocated to the Takeover, and I'm sure you're mature enough to realise the consequences should anything be destroyed…" 

Rinoa abruptly levered herself off the hard mattress and hit the ground striding, pointedly turning her back upon the General and deliberately scuffing through the tangled mess of cords, scattering them even further with the front of her boots. 

"That's enough," General Caraway said, a steely brittleness solidifying his carefully uttered words. He straightened, setting the collected wires in a multi-coloured bundle upon the rumpled bed sheets, and swivelled to face the haughty, retreating form of his infuriating offspring. "You're being purposely difficult, and that's no attitude to take in any sort of military operation, do you understand? I'd hoped that this mission would have… brought us together on common ground for once. You're no longer a girl, a teenager… you've experienced warfare, taken part in it and observed it, you're a hardened warrior for heaven's sake, and a grown woman! Act like what you are for a change, instead of regressing like a…"

"You dare to lecture me?!" Rinoa snarled, pivoting to blast General Caraway with the full force of the fire that was erupting from the black pools of her eyes. Her delicately boned fingers were jammed into two extremely tense balls of blanched flesh, skin stretched tightly across the rolling hills of her knuckles as a reflection of her bubbling indignation. "My motives are not to be questioned, _ever_! Your stuffy little military games are nothing compared to what _I_ have to ensure, what _I _have to put up with, what _I _have to worry about!" Rinoa's eyes narrowed, as though lining her glare upon the sight of a dangerous crossbow. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be me?" she hissed. 

"No," Caraway replied honestly and without missing a beat, "But what I do know is that the needs of the state outweigh the needs of the few – that's my duty as a military man, and furthermore, it's not my duty to set my personal needs and wants over what would benefit the greater majority. Of course, that leads me to question exactly how you managed the situation with the Commander of Balamb Garden, and if your personal relationship with the boy had any influence on the proceedings that I strictly constructed for your benefit? If you bear any grudge, this is _not_ the time to raise dispute; any bone you might have to pick with the boy can wait until the objectives of the Takeover have been successfully executed, do I make myself clear? There is far too much at stake for your personal emotions to jeopardise the implementation of Galbadia's latest conquest and…"

**Oh, what's the point? Nothing's changed, even after all this time. I'm still a little girl in your rheumy eyes.**

An internal shrug of dismissal saw Rinoa's mood switch seamlessly from outraged affront to a blank sort of contemplation, upon which she chose to ride out the wave of the familiar lecture that was bearing down upon her back. It was not very different from anything she had heard before; at the very least, the core of meaning within Caraway's words had evolved very little even over the span of the past few years. Duty, maturity, duty, maturity… now and forever more, Amen. With bored repose, Rinoa turned away from the source of the verbal volley and instead directed her attention to the sight of the awesome pillars, structures and dizzying designs of the city sprawled behind the broad sheet of glass that flanked an entire wall of the laboratory. In the few moments before dawn, the buildings and skyscrapers seemed to rise from the ground like gigantic monoliths, their brilliant range of colours temporarily cloaked in the indigo shadows of receding night. As she gradually filtered out the background drone of her lecturing patriarch, Rinoa wondered if Esthar, in all of its years of splendid isolation from the outer world, had ever known the oppressive darkness to be alleviated only by the illumination of the overhead stars… most of the city's generators were currently dormant, with only the Presidential palace and skystations having the privilege of a continuous supply of energy… had they ever known such a magnitude of quietness, the sort of hush that was the result of the absence of living sound? Beyond that barrier of polished glass was a silent-footed night, a man-made world emptied of its creators, a city rendered… mute. Dead. No, not dead. Death was too final, too feared. Esthar was different. 

Esthar… _slept. _

Setting her jaw firmly in place, Rinoa was only too aware of the tiny, pallid figure strapped to the low bed only metres away, knowing that if she turned her eyes ever so slightly to the left that the very same figure would be mirrored in the shining glass like a mocking double reminder of what it posed… what it posed for Galbadia… for the world… what it posed for _her._   

That was something that nobody could ever understand. 

Rinoa laughed ever so softly underneath her breath, watching the unblemished glass before her face fog with the warm moisture of her exhalation. How to explain… to herself, even? The words could not come, refused to come… an indescribable… feeling? emotion? fear? … of what could tentatively be described as… dread. A dread so chilling, so draining and rancid… that the bare thought alone of bearing the weight of it any longer made her feel incredibly weak in the knees. Not just one feeling? emotion? fear? … rather, a _horde_, a tapestry of voices whose bodies were long since ash and dust, pitiful fragments of remembrance of those who had once existed but now scrabbled for a hold on the fading memories of the others who had rendered them real… 

How to explain… this inheritance?

**I can hear them all the time… Sorceresses dead and gone… you want me to remember for you all, you want me to remember what you once were… but dying brings death, death brings such terrible removal, this power we share is all that remains… a never ending daisy chain. **

**_……_**__

_I don't want to die. _

Rinoa averted her eyes, dragging them away from the window's reflections and onto the safe emptiness of the perfectly tiled floor. 

_This power… is mine. To keep. _

"Rinoa?"

_Death will not take it. Death will not take me. Squall, you taught me that… I know you'd never want to admit it, but screw what you think. I won't be reduced to a memory. Nobody understands… what it's like to be hounded for blood, persecuted for what I've been blessed with… how could I stay with you in that Garden of death? Death… everywhere… etched in the words you preached, written in all your precious little dogmas… how could you brainwash people so? Is life so cheap to you after all, Squall, that you must teach others to think the same way? I won't be like the others. I will never submit to the creed of death… but you'd never appreciate my outlook anyway. You'd never appreciate what I'm doing for you, what I'm doing for Ellone. How sad._

"Rinoa? Did you hear me?"

"_What now_?" she seethed irritably, her train of thought having been untimely derailed. 

"I asked whether they called your bluff?"

Rinoa casually flicked a raven lock of hair behind her ear as she brought her mind back to the present. "No father, they did not," she replied a little too sweetly, finally turning her back on the city outside to look General Caraway in the eye. The frown that was plastered on his face did not abate, indicating that he was still far from impressed with the frivolous attitude of his daughter.

"Are you certain? How much optional information did you discharge to the boy? What sort of resistance did he raise? You certainly _sounded _upset when you pulled out of junctioning…"

Rinoa impatiently waved Caraway's concerns to a dead stop. "Cool your jets… Squall didn't suspect a thing. For all he knows, we could be holding all of Esthar at knife point and…"

It was Caraway's turn to be edgily dismissive. "That's not the most important issue here! Tell me, does he know anything about _Ellone's_ current condition?" 

Rinoa's stomach tightened at the mention of that name, while the muscles of her face involuntarily tensed to form a mask of surly displeasure. The General may have fallen prey to the clutches of old age, but his vision was not so far gone to disregard the subtle changes in Rinoa's now hardly forthcoming expression. Instead of responding immediately, Caraway took a moment to restrain his rising trepidations with a mental lash of military discipline, interpreting Rinoa's silence as a disastrous indication of Galbadia's best laid plans going awry before his very eyes.

"Rinoa… please," he began carefully, keeping his eyes trained on a random patch of immaculately sterilised floor. "I've told you time and time again that Ellone is our highest stake, our most valuable bargaining chip… the only card in our hand that could _win _this city for our nation…" Caraway's voice cracked slightly as he struggled to maintain a guise of an overly calm demeanour. "We can't afford to let anybody on the outside guess what is happening in here. Why do you think I went through all of the trouble to barricade our forces, cutting all of the city's communication lines… essentially _alienating_ Esthar even more efficiently than anything the citizens themselves could have hoped to manage?"

The General paused, trying to take a measure of his daughter's reaction, but her face remained passive while her dark eyes appeared glassy in thought. Gritting his teeth, Caraway stepped forward and took Rinoa firmly by one shoulder, trying to shake a portion of the anxiety he was feeling into her stubbornly irresponsive body. 

"Rinoa! Did he guess?!" Caraway practically all but yelled, remembering in the nick of time to pull back his shout as he realised that the troops he had stationed down the corridor were not that far out of earshot. 

"You're worried over something as trivial as that…" Rinoa finally said, a tinge of bitter laughter colouring her voice black as it trailed away into ambiguity. With a simple flick, she dislocated herself from her father's grasp and slid past him, her feet gliding along the smooth gloss of the floor as though the surface were coated with frost. 

Before Caraway could reply, Rinoa spoke again with a more definite tone. "Squall knows nothing of the truth. He believes Ellone to be in danger, and that's all that matters is it not?" She abruptly stopped before the foot of the bed that lay only inches away from her own, forcing herself to look upon the ghostly features of the deathly pale young woman strapped securely against the hard and uncomfortable mattress. 

_… but how much did you tell Selphie, you conniving little bitch?_

"What you should be more concerned about father…" Rinoa began, pausing as she stared intently at those inert eyes, almost challenging them to flip open to intercept the revelation she was about to utter,"… is what Ellone is getting up to behind the scenes."

The General didn't answer straight away, taking a moment to scratch at his frowning brow and appearing less than willing to be briefed in a military operation by of all people, his own daughter… however, after a few heartbeats of fleeting thought, curiosity and duty seized a hold of him and he finally pivoted on his heels to march across the room in his usual agitated fashion. "What on earth do you mean?"

"I tested her today," Rinoa muttered enigmatically. She did not turn her head even as Caraway joined her at her side, at first appearing to be talking mostly to herself and hardly rejoicing in her tiny victory in their ongoing battle of words and wills. Something stirred in the black pools behind her half-lidded eyes, as though finally conceding to the decision to admit the General into the circumference of her thoughts. "Don't be fooled, father. She may be dying, but she's fully capable of finding loopholes around my barriers, like she managed today…"

"What?!" Caraway exclaimed, his eyes bulging as he whipped his head around to blast Rinoa with the full force of his alarm. "You were only supposed to lend her energy… that was the whole purpose of junctioning you to that blasted machine… what did you do on top of that? You deliberately went against authoritative orders, didn't you?!"

Rinoa still refused to look at him, keeping her face bowed beneath the protective curtain of her ebony hair which was effectively concealing the twisted snarl that was marring her usual girlish visage. 

**If we were all going by your orders, daddy dear, we'd have been dog food even before getting halfway to this stupid city… and you're enough of a prick to think that all I've done so far was just for kicks? A little girl playing empty games, and Squall, a little boy leading an army of toy soldiers? You think of us as children. That's dangerous. But what's worse is that you also think Ellone is still a child… and if not for me to think otherwise for the both of us, this plan would've blown up in your snooty face a long time ago. **

Rinoa was thinking this, but chose not to inject the vehemence that she was feeling into a series of worded barbs, instead opting to remain as composed as a trembling body of water on a windless day. _No way am I letting you know how you've gotten to me… I'll let you think the way you want to for now… seeing your face when you finally realise who holds the cards will make it all the more sweeter… _  

"I've told you already how tapping into scraps of Ellone's powers of traversing distances allows me to boost my own." Rinoa smoothly picked up the remains of her broken sentence, clearly ignoring her father's heated accusation and giving no obvious indication of having been affected by it. "I may not be able to breach the Dreamworld, but I can still pick up traces of what lies inside, even if Ellone is barring the way… today I tested the range and limits of what I can borrow from her… transposing her memories and of those she's currently hiding in the Dreamworld into reality is easy enough with the help of my own abilities. The illusions were not very permanent, but they could be useful in the future as psychological weapons…"

**Hide where you will, Ellone. Even if I can't get to where you are, I'll do everything I can to make it that much harder for you to maintain your stupid little Dreamworld… you and Esthar can't hide forever. I'll force you to live yet. **

"Fives times I junctioned with Ellone today, and three of those times she slipped around me to… to try to Connect with her heir," Rinoa admitted with difficulty. It somehow felt more humiliating to hear her incompetence structured in words, but with a sudden surge of responsibility, she reluctantly knew that it was best if Caraway had some sort of inkling of what was going on in terms of magic – as a disciple and veteran of the military way, magic was still a force that he co-existed uneasily with, and Rinoa was all too aware of the possible consequences arising from limited understanding on any issue.

_If my father with all of his brick headed mentality can bring himself to ally Galbadia with another Sorceress, even after the events of last year… what does that say about you and your precious SeeDs, Squall? Knowing what I was and knowing who I was to you… your Garden was that much more important… and the continued existence of your so-called traditional ideologies which suppress this power that I wield. Oh, I have plenty of leeway to be angry at you… at all of you…_         

"You stopped her?" Caraway's voice was flat as week-old soda, and he was either _not_ impressed at all by the wily actions of his daughter, the unforeseen pluckiness of the seemingly helpless Ellone, or both. Nonetheless, he prudently permitted Rinoa to continue her explanation.    

"There was no real need to, on my part at least," she replied, finally adverting her gaze from the pallid girl before her and idly picking at a fastidiously filed nail. "Try as she might, she's far too weak to establish any sort of Connection outside the Dreamworld for as long as she continues to hold it together. What I'm more concerned with though is that she's still trying to juggle the two tasks anyway…"

Caraway visibly tensed. "And is that contributing to the burning out process?" 

Rinoa did not lift her gaze, as though half afraid to admit the truth. "Sort of," she compromised. "I'm lending Ellone energy, just like we decided…"

**'We'. Keep that in mind, father. You're not making the sole decisions here. Nothing is done without my approval first, and you know it. **

"… but she's using at least ninety-five percent of what I give her to strengthen the barriers she's set up around the Dreamworld, and the remaining five percent to try to communicate with the outer world. She's set on neglecting herself…" 

_Why are you so determined to die? Fool. _

"Then that has to change," General Caraway said with a steely edge to his voice, crossing his arms in the small of his back and settling into a stance as stiff as a newly starched shirt. "Find a way to re-direct the energies, force-feed her the stuff if need be… do whatever it takes to preserve the girl until the heir arrives, using anything at your disposal – I will not tolerate failure. I'm certain anyway that you've realised that in the worse case scenario, I cannot guarantee your safety should anything happen to this girl before the appointed time arrives."

The thinly veiled threat cut itself along Rinoa's ears like a dull, blunt blade and she glowered heatedly at her infuriating father as he glanced briefly first at Ellone then flicked his eyes curtly over his daughter's head, completely oblivious of the scope of her underlying feelings. "It's dawn," he observed as he turned on his polished heels and marched briskly towards the door. The conversation had ended in an unusually abrupt fashion, possibly due to the onset of bad humour on the General's part or maybe the incessant nagging of an empty stomach. "Rations will be distributed in thirty minutes. We'll stand on ceremony with the troops."

"I'm not one of your soldiers," Rinoa whispered ominously beneath her breath, the words fanning against the long black tresses that were draped around the circumference of her face. Hot air rushed past her tiny lips, a heat that paled in contrast to the bubbling temper that was frothing within her bones, making her skin crawl with scratchy heat. 

From the far right of the room came the sound of parting air and an accompanying creak as the laboratory door swung open. For a split second, a gap appeared in the previously sealed boundary between the awakening palace and the cold, sterile room… familiar sounds, muffled in texture but still recognisable, eagerly traversed the temporary breach and brushed against Rinoa's hearing. Voices, soft but distinct, the rubbing of cloth against leather and the usual thumps and bumps of groggy humans… sounds which the morning brought apart from the usual sunshine and crisp autumn air. 

_Now… a world apart._

In the time that it took for Rinoa to formulate a blink, the squeak of rubber soles and the metallic chorus of clustered buttons announced General Caraway's departure, the cloud of noise which wafted around his animate form being snuffed like an extinguished candle with the swish of the door. The heavy steel panel clicked into place, swallowing the sounds that emanated beyond, clamping down with a sort of finality upon the rift that had bridged the world of the laboratory and the outside for a sprinkling of mere moments.

Rinoa turned to glare at the now closed door as though it were a greatly offensive individual. "I'm your daughter," she hissed, her ears straining to pick up on the receding steps of the General as he forsakenly left his child to carry forth an impossible bidding…

"I'm… I'm a Sorceress!" She spat with a swell of indignation, "I'm a _woman_!" The childish stamp of a foot which followed threatened to reveal the hypocrisy of that remark. Rinoa hugged her clenched fists close to her body, as though fearful that they would start throwing punches of their own accord. 

"So… why don't you _treat _me like I am?!"

_And what if I don't want to stay here, flogging a horse that might as well be dead? What if I don't want to play your stupid war games? What if I can't do anything to stop the bitch after all? What if I fail at everything you've expected me to succeed in? What if what if what if…_

A rasping laugh erupted from Rinoa's throat, the humourless peal echoing around the scantily furnished room and thus clashing back against her ears with twice the dripping mockery. 

_What difference does it make if I win or lose? You don't view me as an equal. You never have. Oh, I'm your daughter all right. I'm a Sorceress. I'm nothing but a woman… or a girl, as you still see me… girls aren't soldiers. Not to you, anyway. I've figured that much out. But really, what am I to you father, apart from those things? A child? A tool? The end of your military inheritance? _

Rinoa shook her head.

_In your eyes… I'm a disappointment.  _ 

With a surge of shame, Rinoa felt hot tears prickling ominously behind her tightly shut eyes but fiercely shook them down from whence they came. 

"Same to you, father…" she murmured as she mooched back to her wire-strewn bed, "Same to you…"

_Believe what you want. I'll turn the tables yet… a Sorceress is no puppet to be pulled. A Sorceress _does _the pulling. I'll show you. You'll find no reason for me to disappoint._

_I'll show you._

Ignoring the less than comfortable protuberances of the cords scattered across the sheets, Rinoa clambered upon the rickety bed and laid herself down, curling herself into a compact ball against the chill of the room which was settling on her immobile body. The drumming of the blood pumping through her ears gradually settled, paving the way for tendrils of silence to flood her hearing with waves of white noise. She did not close her eyes, instead looking directly ahead at the rise of a milky shoulder, the limpness of a tawny mop of hair where the closely cropped strands hugged the barely visible curve of a sunken cheek…

… but most importantly, the vaguely audible rise and flutter of a strapped and buckled chest…

_Do you really think they'll understand, Ellone? Do you really think they'll understand why you wish to die? You're only fooling yourself, thinking that they'd let you go… Squall will probably be on his way to save you as soon as he recovers... how funny it'd be if he knew that's exactly what I want from him…  _

Breathe in…

_It pains you to find yourself on my side, doesn't it? You don't want to see Selphie dead anymore than I do… the tests I forced you to take today are proof enough of that. Keep it up, darling… together with Squall, the two of you should see Selphie safely home… though judging from the resourcefulness displayed today by the ditzy little heir, she'll be sure to keep herself in one piece of her own accord…_

Breathe out…

_… and nobody has to die._

Rinoa closed her eyes and snuggled into that comforting thought, a small smile of genuine happiness hovering over her lips for the first time in days. Even the throbbing ache emanating from her temple, the sort of ache one might feel if they had just endured a tremendous blow from a shaft-like weapon, could not dampen her lifting mood. 

Ellone would live yet… and so would she.  

*** * ***

Okay, that's all out of the way for now! *Kicks Rinoa aside* Ahhh, that felt good. XD Like I said before, I'm sorry that it took so long to get this out, but uni has been keeping me extremely busy (my subjects this semester actually require me to do work, damn it =P), and I've recently been up to my armpits with oral presentations, in-class tests and three essays due literally one after the other… @___o;; My speeches are over, and my essays are due next week so methinks I'll have a bit more time to keep on writing! *nod* I've already started the next chapter, so that's a good sign at least… ^.^;;; Now then, a couple of words from our sponsor! (Looooong overdue words) O.O;;;

Aeris Deathscythe – Hey, thankyou for reviewing again! Lol, and I can see where you're coming from about the confuzzling, I have a tendency for my words to run away with me a lot of the time… O__o;;; ^.^;; I'll be trying to cut my sentences down in the future, it's important for essay writing too…! ;)

AmyAngel – thankyou for reviewing, and sorry about the cliffhanger! =P As you can see, Rinoa's gotten a good whack on the head through Squall, so I guess Karma works, eh? ;)

CTHSKI – I'll be trying to avoid cliffhangers in the future… but I can't promise that 100%! XD By now, Selphie's gotten all cleaned up and ready for another chapter, and I reckoned it was sorta fitting for Squall to have a windy limit since he's named after a storm! ;) *Either that or he had too much baked beans* XD XD Okay okay okay, too much information… O.O;;

The Almighty Pickle – Woohoo! Thankyou for reading the whole story, and I'm really glad you liked it! *cheers* Can't say I'm too fond of Squinoas either, though I just skirt around them… ;) and don't worry, I'll be keeping this up until the very end! *Swears*

Karla3 - *doink!* ^__^ Thankyou for the compliment, I'm glad you liked the last chapter, confuzzling and all! :D 'Hope to see you around!

Zero-Vision – Bless you, first groupie of mine! ^_~ *Raises a glass in a toast*  

**-------------**

Coming up next: What was going through Squall's mind as Rinoa swallowed him whole, and what awaits him and Selphie with arrival of a new day? Solo sdventuring sill be starting VERY soon! **And remember – there will be a genre change to 'romance' with the next chapter! ^__^**


	13. Goodbye for awhile

Well, there doesn't seem much point apologising for my lateness again since it's getting pretty frequent, eh? =P Put it down to a bad combination of uni work, final exams and worst of all, inspiration block… X__X Only about one or two weeks ago was I able to get back to this chapter and to actually write something decent… I found myself typing three hours nonstop that night, and two days ago I had another three hour bout of inspiration which took me from one to four in the morning… not good for the health, that's for sure. XD 

That stuff aside, this chapter basically marks the end of all the preliminaries of the past 11 chapters – I'll be editing the chapters so far to be encompassed in a 'Part 1' section, just to make it clearer… Part 2 officially starts in the next chapter, and I think I'll include a recap of Part 1 since there were a lot of crazy things happening… ^^;; 

Chapter summary time – for those of you who feel like it, turn back to chapter 10 and get a recap, since the first half of this chapter (sorta) deals with what's happening there, only this time it's in Squall's point of view. Beware of much abstract writing up ahead… this whole fic is supposed to be word exercise for me anyway… ^_~ Anyway, as usual I'll have more to say at the end of the chapter, so carry on dear reader! :)

****

**CHAPTER 12: Goodbye for awhile:**

_The obsidian film that was settling like a restrictive gauze mesh upon his senses gradually filtered away the sensation of exterior forces upon his form, lowering him slowly into a quagmire of feathery fog which received him with an eager, chilly touch. Falling, drifting, floating… it all felt the same, this convergence of self-detachment… he faintly remembered feeling angry, he faintly remembered why… but the mere act of thinking suddenly seemed far too much trouble than what it was worth, the lethargic flow of his memories seeming vague and muffled, as though submerged in deep water… this letting go, it felt so… pleasant. He thought he might have smiled then, feeling his fiercely guarded core of being wafting away along the dark currents of his free fall, streamers of smoky haze dissipating in the after draft… lulled into a dreamy complacency, time itself seemed to have slowed and grown non-existent with the duration of his slow, soft plummet into an inky black maw of ethereal space…_

_Suddenly…_

_Touch._

_?_

_It lingered._

_……?_

_He hesitated, feeling the ebony bower quaver in time with his stirring, sluggish heart…_

_Touch…_

_He paused._

_……? _

_It had been so long… since he had felt a touch like this…_

_……?_

_Tenderness…_

_Selfless, seeking, sympathetic touch… such an alien sensation, but one that was not unpleasant at all… confused, he felt his frame all aquiver with vying feelings… he was still plunging downwards along a petal-soft trajectory of midnight breeze, half of his mind spinning away along the currents and urging the rest of his being to submit to the heady sensation of self-liberation… but the other half of his head was suddenly overcome with an uncomfortable restlessness and a curious sort of longing, tentatively stretching out to the source of the uninvited yet not unwelcome touch… curiosity quickly evolved into yearning… something that had remained shrivelled and empty deep inside for so long was being unexpectedly filled… he thought that he could do without, he thought that such things were unimportant, but now he felt more than ready to admit that he had been wrong for so long. A sweet, honeyed warmth was flooding his barren core where it had once been stark and bleak, and he could feel himself glowing with exhilaration as he trembled in time to the humming, enquiring touch like a gently plucked string… _

_The driving frost lopped off the connection with such spontaneity that he had no time to protest; the rancid cold had cut through the dark softness with the type of sudden severity which heralds a billowing thunderstorm on the immediate horizon, and a guttural roar followed in the wake of the cold which sluiced over his pleasantly warmed form in a chilling torrent of darkened sound. Emptied once more and deprived of the source which had proceeded to fill him with the long forgotten thrill of affection, he tore his attention towards the writhing black shapes materialising out of the surrounding void which, without prior warning, had grown hostile and distant... from cradle to crucible… rising fear and a helpless sort of frustration seized him as the demand for movement that he directed to his soaring self was met with slackness, all reactions and reflexes having slowed to a gentle halt… vulnerable as a newborn and hemmed in on either side by the towering spawn of the void, there was not much that he could do in way of resistance as the shadowy spectres fell upon him with weightless yet stifling force… the essence of him did not react, did not retaliate or shrink away… he could no nothing. Something or someone had sliced his strings, leaving him as capable as a broken puppet in the face of a threat… he still managed to flinch however as what felt like the ribs of wintry wings combed against his being, feathers painted with the brush of deepest night stroking him with malevolent amusement… there seemed to be something achingly familiar in the black aura of the void, and a flash of images sped through his consciousness as he struggled with the task of identification. He knew that he had seen such darkness before, somewhere on the plane of reality… a laughing figure clad in cerulean blue seemed to skip through the thickening soup of his recall, the burnished strands of long flying hair smothering his mind's eye with the same feathery ice of the hungry void…_

_… the talons struck at that precise moment, and there was no gentle tentativeness in their cruel, forceful grasp. He bucked as the sensation of razor sharpness crunched effortlessly through his unresisting self, and he knew not whether he screamed in reaction… what he was all too aware of however was the immense weight of fatigue that had suddenly applied itself to the apex of his head, heavy as a bout of depression and doubly as dark. Draining… something was… draining him… _

_Rivers of pulsing warmth were sluicing away from his core in a frighteningly rapid flow, dripping and meandering towards the jagged points of penetration where the talons had skewered his persona… he feebly beckoned the currents back, voiceless and faint as he was… ineffectual as the action proved… a buzzing was flitting around his limp and palpable form like a droning bee, a buzzing that quickly flowered into a ripening bloom of hearty laughter… the void was laughing so jovially, the black walls trembling with the throaty vibrations and he could almost perceive the void to have shoulders with which to shake with hilarity… close by, so close that the empty air stirred against him with the movement, the rustling of a blanket of feathers drifted his way as did a cloud of loose black fibres. But there were other noises, now that he thought about it – below the humiliating jeers of the void, a dulled yet furious clashing thudded like a subtle bass line… what also sounded like clinks, crashes and a flurry of brittle snaps… something about the chorus of underlying noise pulsed with familiarity, something in it stirred the congealing blood of his comatose veins, something about it seemed so… so… _

_He could not remember what. _

_Everything seemed so… slow. So… still._

_Exhaustion, the deepest that he had felt ever since he could remember, settled gently upon him like an invisible ether, stealing around him like a foggy concoction of Confusion and Sleep… drowsy now, he became limper still, the void having emptied him to the dregs of his core and all of his reserves along with it… everything taken, nothing given, but he suddenly couldn't muster enough strength to dwell on it. The darkness around him seemed to dim as grey stars flickered before his mind's eye, a fuzzy static of bubbling monochrome which was accompanied by a bout of heavy, foreboding silence… senses… numbing… everything. Seemed. So… meaningless. He didn't know why. He couldn't remember if this was even… even like him, to feel so… s-so…_

_He could not remember what.  _

_……_

_For now, there was… peace. Quiet. He did not find it unpleasant._

_……_

_To feel nothing… it felt… so… so… _

_……_

_… nice._

_……_

_……_

_……?_

_???_

_!_

_!!_

_!!!_

_Something was happening!_

_!_

_!_

_Suddenly… feeling…_

_!_

_!_

_… so…_

_!_

_!_

_… s-so…_

_?_

_……_

_… ANGRY!_

_The void reared in synchronised rhythm to the flashing white sparks that were spewing from his very centre, and where they flung themselves in the air, the brilliant after trails throbbed steadily against the backdrop of the writhing black walls like the dying echo of a pulsing heart. The tired film that had coated his thoughts like a sticky web was torn away by a burning blade of freshly forged fury… red, everything was red… then white, a sheet of whirling snow which was hot to the touch… merging back into madder hues, dark as recently drawn blood. He surged forward, suddenly animated with overwhelming strength from an unknown source, but to his furious indignation, his flaming form met with a solid wall of resistance. Darting back to whence he came, yet another barrier was thrown into his path… all around, there were walls! The yowling gale churning out of his core quickened with his escalating wrath, the vicious wind whipping ferociously in crazy circles within the constrictive enclosure of his invisible cage. Again and again he stormed the barricades, the horrible shrieks of his self-generated tempest injecting him with something akin to berserk fervour as he blindly scrabbled at the unyielding blockades, willing them to crumble, wanting… wanting _release…!!

_And suddenly, release came._

_It was nothing like he expected. Technically, he knew not what to expect… the frenzied desperation that was clouding his reasoning with urges for wanton destruction gave no leave for rational thoughts… one moment, the impenetrable enclosure was frustratingly staunch in its rigid resolve, the following moment the partitions between himself and beyond had ceased to exist… like the overheated contents of a rattling pot, every drop of his raging essence boiled and bubbled over into the waiting black maw of the void, cascading forward with the momentum of his eager charge… losing, he was losing it all…! He pulled up viciously, yanking himself backwards only to crash into the wintry softness of black satin feathers… the cold filaments stung, and where they bit they hurt greatly… _

_Fear, now sitting astride his vehemence. Coherent thought had slipped away along the running flow, and he was now afraid. _

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

_He could not reign in the wild bronco that was his fury, try as he might – something was laying claim to it as fast as he could generate it… he could feel the void swell as it gorged on him and he did not know how to stop. Couldn't stop! Where had this rage surfaced from? A dormant beast, suddenly grown savage and wild in the blink of an eye… or… was it gifted to him? He did not know. All he knew was the marrow-numbing sensation of desperate terror, a fear almost cold enough to blunt the edges of his warring hate. The foreboding wings were folding, wrapping their repugnant silky lengths around him like a closing fist… they would suffocate him, drink him to the brittle bone! He resisted, his flaring self thrashing in an erratic jumble of red and white even as the layers of glacial softness wrapped themselves firmly around him, smothering him, endeavouring to snuff out his flailing flame… the darkness was setting in, shuttering his mind's eye with a finality like that of a closing book… he caught another flash of an image, set starkly against the backdrop of inky night…_

Thump.

_A… girl. With dark brown hair stroking the shadowy alcoves of her cheekbones, a pair of sunken eyes stirred beneath a shrunken brow and rose to fasten their gaze upon him… he flinched, feeling something within him recoil at the sight of a face so frighteningly impoverished, a face that might have belonged to an otherwordly ghoul but for… but for…_

_?_

Thump.

_I've seen you before…_

_?_

Thump.

_She looked so sad, so feeble. Those eyes, those imploring gravy pools of silent suffering… _

_Why do you look at me like that? Who are you to me?_

_…?_

Thump.

_And just like that, the vision was whisked away… and he felt bothered, as though some part of him had caught hold of the receding image and been thrown out with it… _

_The enveloping darkness only worsened the rising feeling of guilty inadequacy, and he simmered in a gloomy stupor beneath the tight seams of the folded feathers. The fight had seeped out of him yet the anger still remained, like a diamond-hard fragment which refused to disintegrate, and within his enclosure he continued to burn and seethe… a spitting flame, smudged around the edges with the confusing sensation of depression and the gnawing panic of edgy terror. _

Thump.

Thump.

_He would have whimpered then, if he could remember how. Tears might very well have been an option, since pride was no longer present to keep them from overflowing. The rustling darkness was Other and he instinctively cowered as its malignant touch explored the planes of his essence, the snapping flames snaking around his form parting submissively in the wake of its probing. The dull echo of his still burning rage seemed to pale in comparison to the roar of pure dread booming throughout the suffocating feather cage. Loneliness. He felt it, yet he did not know that he did. It was not an unknown companion, but this he did not know either. _

_All he knew was that he had forgotten, yet he did not know how. _

Thump.

Thump.

_!_

_You!_

_FLASH!_

_Wait!_

_Gone! But he had seen her again, he was so sure! Darkness temporarily forgotten, he flickered and flared, searching and stretching and reaching for the afterglow of the rapidly dissipating vision that had once again materialised out of nowhere… and even as the image melted and died, those bottomless brown eyes seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat or more, their wistful and imploring light shifting into something like a reassuring smile as they finally blinked themselves away…_

_There was no time to dwell on what it had all meant. Something had changed, something had evolved in the air around him… the void. It was bucking, shaking… screaming._

_With an agonised shriek that would have raised the hairs of his neck had the sound been overworldly, the encircling wings suddenly buckled and crumbled away like rotten mortar, raining black dust upon his bewildered form like a storm of blowing ashes. He did not know what to do. He was free, but where could he go? He was still desperately afraid, with the dark walls of the void thrashing with some sort of affronted fury… and then the howling white wind of his core whipped him uncontrollably into a tumultuous basin of lashing black and white… his senses were instantly stifled with the chaotic screeches of the folding void… disorientated, he was helpless against the clutches of the tearing white wind as it threw him ever closer to the nadir of the spiralling whirlpool. _

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

_It was over. All over. _

Thump.

Thump.

_PAIN!_

_!!!!!_

_He felt it._

_He remembered what pain was!_

_He remembered how to feel, something… was returning, something was being… restored and… pain, pain, pain… it was flooding through him like quicksilver, ripping into him with blunted teeth and oh, it felt so terrible yet at the same time so dearly necessary…  _

_:…… hea…r……m…e… y…et?:_

_?!_

_:…a…k…e… ho…l…d…:_

_?!_

_How long have you been calling to me?_

_:I'll… t…ak…e……yo…u…h…o…me…:_

_:C…a…n……yo…u…h…ea…r……m…e…?:_

_……_

**_Yes!_**

_Silently and swiftly, a golden cord seemed to materialise out of the sagging walls of the dripping void, burning brightly through the murky darkness like the beacon of a lighthouse… and just as welcome. It came sailing effortlessly through the white wind and the currents of the turbulent whirlpool, untouched and pure, anchoring its end deep into his humming core. It pulled. He responded. As he felt himself being reeled further and further away from the hungry centre of the caving void, his entire form sung with sobbing relief… relief that there was solace from maddening loneliness beyond the darkness, relief that he could finally remember what madness and loneliness was, relief that there could be company apart from… from…_

_…himself._

_The final bellow of defeat from the cheated void already seemed far away, as though the sound were trying in vain to seep through a blanket of thick heavy glass. It was easily ignored. With an ensuing sharp tug of encouragement, he plunged through the weakened walls of the void, chewing through the black fog like a knife through hot butter and meeting no resistance. Faster and faster he flew, the golden cord snapping furiously like a wayward whip with the rush of his momentum… and ever so gradually, the darkness took on a dirty hue of smoky grey, a grey which waxed itself clearer and less opaque the further he travelled through the now thinning body of the soupy black cloud…_

_Light!_

_Blinded, he surged forward regardless, even as the flaxen radiance broke through the wispy clouds to pour bucket loads of white moonshine upon his trajectory. Bathed with the glowing shower, any lingering traces of the gloomy void were instantly washed away, but still he sped on… the golden cord still pulled at him, beckoning and coercing. He trusted it. He poured his faith into it.  _

_He felt no need to know why. It simply felt right. _

_At last, he felt the line go slack, spinning him into an open window of glaring white luminosity which had suddenly taken form out of nowhere. Shooting over the boundary between his present location to whatever world lay beyond like a cork from a bottle, he turned and twisted, accelerating rapidly with every rotation down what felt like a blazing chute… through the overwhelming haze of disorientation and muddled colours, he caught one last glance of the golden cord as it snaked away from his falling form… winking with the gloss of its sheen, it suddenly froze in the middle of its waving movement as though it had been snatched by an invisible hand… and then he thought of it no more as the end of his fall was marked with a solid 'whump', and the onset of a muffled sort of silence. He understood why. The wind had stopped at last._

It was the itch that woke him. A nagging, incessant, unbearable itch which instantly invaded his awareness even as his dormant body slowly groped its way back into the land of the living. It was everywhere, demanding every ounce of his concentration, but it somehow seemed to be concentrated most prominently around a section of his brow… the infuriating sensation was completely and utterly intolerable. Eyes still firmly closed and the bridge of his nose wrinkled with the onset of a grimace, he irritably reached out a hand to the offending area, fingers splayed and nails armed at the ready…

"Stop that," an uncompromising voice lilted in his ear, quite close by. He started in surprise at the sudden sound, and then an unexpected hand which slapped his own away was enough of an incentive to flip his eyes open in sheer astonishment. 

"Awake at last, are we? How do you feel, Squall?"

He only half registered the words as he winced in reaction to the glare of the strong light illuminating his surroundings. No, it wasn't too strong… his eyes just felt too tender, too sensitive… he might have voiced this, but the itch chose to seize his throat as he drew a speaking breath and his windpipe contracted, gagging any words that might have followed. There followed a rustle of fabric and almost immediately, a cold polished object was being pressed to his parted lips. Water, as cool and smooth as the glass, trickled in rivulets across his parched tongue… remembering how to swallow, the liquid balm seemed to snuff the last of his hoarse chokes and settled in a chilling pool within the depths of his stomach, shocking his groggy system into full wakefulness. With the onset of new invigoration leaking into his tired muscles, Squall finally felt ready enough to acknowledge himself – and any others around him.

"No fast moves, alright? There's nothing for you to prove in front of me," Quistis put forth bluntly, admonishing Squall's initial attempts to disentangle himself from the sheets that he found himself wrapped in. She was as impeccably dressed as the last time they had conversed, and Squall found himself half believing that absolutely nothing else had taken place between then and now… a conception that might otherwise have been more convincing if not for the irritating itch, and the realisation that several parts of him were swathed in coarse bandages. He lifted one firmly wrapped hand, gazing at it in blank astonishment before his eyes tracked further to his equally bound torso. Words started to gather in confusing clots along his tongue as he continued to stare at his form, a form which did not seem to be his at all…

"You seem surprised," Quistis observed, her voice coloured with mild amusement. There were a series of clacks upon the hard marble floor, and then the gentle creak of metal coils as the mattress sagged slightly under her weight. "Believe me, your tab has just sky rocketed to an all new high – that's twenty two potions you owe me now."

"What… the hell happened?" Squall finally blurted out, his already disorientated thoughts made more jumbled by Quistis' casual, dismissive attitude. He'd never known wounds like this, not after Seifer, not even Edea… it was a shock to the system to be so timely reminded of his mortality, and he could feel his annoyance increasing as Quistis maintained an enigmatic smile upon her angelic face in reply to his question. 

"Burns," she stated simply at last, head cocked to one side as though listening for something. 

"I'm not in the infirmary," Squall interrupted suddenly, having finally absorbed his context. The rich wood panelling and the heavy fibres of the carpet spread generously across the equally generous living space spoke of a Garden suite… his eyes tracked quickly around the room, eventually identifying the familiar dark leather case propped in the corner like a silent sentry. "How did… how did you get me to my room?"

"I managed…" Quistis replied vaguely. She only seemed to be paying half the attention that she should have been, her eyes adverted as she lapsed into a silence in which she looked to be concentrating hard. 

Squall's suspicions were immediately roused. "What…"

He clamped down on his tongue as she raised a warning finger to her lips. "Play dead. _Now_," she hissed. The urgency in her voice and the trepidation in her bright blue eyes was enough to knock him back upon the pillow without hesitation, his heart beginning to thump hard in reaction to imminent danger. Uneasiness slithered underfoot like a snake in long grass, but he didn't have much time to get used to the feeling as a sharp knock on the closed doors made him jump in fright. With some effort, Squall kept his eyes firmly shut and tried to level his quickening exhalations. Without waiting for an invitation, the doors swung open with a rush of air and footsteps clomped into the room – the unmistakable sound of rubber soles collided with the hollow strips of wood layering the floor, muted as they swished imperiously through the plush plain of carpet. The footfalls did not hesitate, and homed in towards the bed.

Squall remained deathly still, his sixth sense already picking up on the aura of tension that had settled in the room with the entrance of the visitor. It took everything he had to resist opening his eyes, even as he registered the pause as the visitor halted somewhere close by, and felt the uncomfortable tingle of a probing stare brush over his passive shape like a cobweb in the dark. Subconsciously, Squall inwardly squirmed deeper into himself, suddenly feeling incredibly vulnerable, his imagination already concocting images of a loaded weapon being aimed at his bed-ridden body… but the strained silence seemed to invite words and Squall waited for them to come, albeit with slightly gritted teeth.

"It's been two hours since I last checked, Vice Commander. Are you going to assert once again that he's still senseless?"

Squall inwardly frowned as the deep, rasping voice clipped through the air like a hurled missile but kept his face composed. The voice did not trigger anything in his memory, but there was a quality about its timbre and snappish air which immediately indicated a military background; after growing up in a military environment, Squall felt no need to doubt himself for reaching that conclusion. The realisation was enough to set his alarm bells ringing as the memories of the last… Hyne knows how many… hours clambered back into view to swamp his skitterish thoughts. Esthar, Galbadia… Rinoa. And… Selphie. She was in this too, possibly more so than he… where on earth was she? 

_:"You will escort the SeeD known by the name of Selphie Tilmitt to the city of Esthar, guarding this individual with the utmost of your strength and skill and in cases most extreme, with your life…": _

Squall heard Rinoa's words echoing through his cavernous mind like a scratched record, the implication of those words drumming into him a heightened sense of agitation…

_Something's going on that I don't know about, and if Selphie has been hurt… does that mean I've failed before I've even started?_

He was forced to quell his rising panic as he felt Quistis rise from where she was seated on the bed, supposedly to confront the visitor head on. 

_Get a grip on yourself. Calm down and listen, damn it._

"General Mandagul," Quistis acknowledged slowly and leisurely, deliberately articulating the words for the benefit of her 'sleeping' Commander. "You're certainly persistent."

"I won't be toyed with," the now identified visitor interjected forcibly, his voice cold and heavy like a slab of freshly shorn ice. "You're playing for high stakes, Vice-Commander. We…"

"I'm perfectly aware of Selphie's current position in Galbadian custody, so I needn't be reminded General," Quistis said in an equally stony reply. "But it would appear that your betters have overstepped their mark in… how do you say… _educating_, my Commander." A split second went by in which she gathered her breath, and a movement in the air alerted Squall to the swift pivoting of her lithe body… a customary Quistis action which he knew preceded a good talking down, and he almost involuntarily felt a wry smile twitch at the corner of his mouth, even as he consumed the bleak bones of information Quistis was secretly throwing his way. 

"Are you familiar with the condition known as 'shock sleep' in Galbadia, General?"

Squall felt the air about a meter or more away stiffen. "We've gone through this before, Vice-Commander. I assume that you're purposely stalling for time for some insidious purpose?"

Ignoring this charge, Quistis barrelled on, reaching deep into her word hoard. "Since my previous explanations haven't seemed to reach home, you would have to forgive me for reasserting myself. I admit that this may be due to a lack of more competent knowledge on your home nation's part in regards to the multi-faceted sides of magic… but as I stated previously, and as I will state many _more_ times to come until you fully grasp the seriousness of this situation, shock sleep is induced by an overload of Para-magic energies on one's sensory perceptors and receivers… Para-Magic is not an internally produced phenomena in the majority of humans such as ourselves, and such energies do frequently come in conflict with those who attempt to harness them. The effect which results from misuse or in my Commander's case, deliberate intention to inflict immense harm, is similar to any reaction which arises from alien energies ravaging the body. An electrical current for example will render one unconscious should the charge be strong enough, and given time, the victim will regain their senses and awaken. Para-Magic is no exception to that analogy but for the more mysterious forces behind it which require a longer period of recovery during the unconscious state…"

Squall recognised the recitation as a variation of an excerpt from a lecture he had once been unfortunate enough to suffer during his Junior days. Even though he was supposed to be putting on the act of deep slumber, he could already feel himself fighting to stay alert as Quistis droned on with her commanding instructor manner, although he suspected that it may have been worse for the General who must have had heard it all before. Squall could _almost _generate a smidge of sympathy for the luckless man…            

"… and so it is before you. My Commander was diagnosed with the condition at 06:52, a good five hours ago, but I have treated cases such as his where the victim was unable to be roused for longer still… so I can give you no guarantee of when he will be able to have enough wits about him to be able to be escorted off the island. All I ask is for you to be patient in these circumstances, and for the Commander to not be moved until a sufficient amount of healing has stabilised his condition. I am doing the best I can to administer the treatment, so if you would kindly leave me to my task, I should be able to hurry the recovery along as long as I don't suffer any further delays." 

Quistis snipped the thread of her speech with what Squall sensed was yet another pirouette, this time away from where he assumed the General to be standing and back towards his prone body on the bed. The silence did not last for long, speckled with alien rustles somewhere near his right ear, and a clatter as a solid object came in contact with something equally as solid. 

"If you don't mind General, I'll be changing these dressings as they're an hour old." Quistis' voice rang out yet again like a sharpened rapier, sparring fearlessly with the General's sword of military arrogance. 

"I mind," Mandagul replied bluntly. He had nothing to say in reply to Quistis' lecture, and Squall assumed that he'd simply not been listening or dismissed the information from the start. The air stirred and Squall felt the scrap of a current of movement flowing downwind over him, stirring against the lashes resting upon the arc of his cheeks. "Show me those wounds. I want to see how well they've healed."

Now that he was near enough to sense completely, Mandagul's presence was overbearing and heavy, as though his aura was stirred to the consistency of a pungent smog. Squall could detect an aroma of sweat mingled with spicy cologne, and once again, he had to resist squirming under the probing glare which he knew was clawing at his skin as though attempting to flush his bluff out into the open to be shot to pieces. 

"As you wish, General," Quistis said curtly, and Squall could clearly see her customary shrug in his mind's eye. He heard more rustling, and the efforts of a blade sawing through tough and wizened fabric. "Since you insist on remaining, you might as well be of service. Take these and cut them in one meter strips while I remove the old dressings."

Squall picked up on the barely noticeable accentuation Quistis had placed on those final words and steeled himself from reacting as he felt her fingers brushing against the bandages which were secured around the circumference of his right wrist. Her fingers were cool but seemed to be glazed with a light film of perspiration, alluding to the guise of bravado that she was putting on in the company of the enemy. Something snagged against his skin and was freed… the bindings relaxed, falling away from his limb like the blossoming petals of a flower…

There followed a pause – of contemplation no doubt, on the General's part. Squall was curious himself to know how his wounds had fared, but for the time being, he only hoped that they were of a nature which was enough to satisfy the General's unspoken standards…

"Mild," was Mandagul's verdict, and a trace of triumph penetrated the gravel-like coarseness of his voice. "Finish up with whatever you're starting. He'll be moving as soon as he wakes or it'll be the Garden that suffers the consequences, Vice-Commander." 

Squall recognised an exit line when he heard one, even when laced with a less than subtle threat, and in spite of this his heart lifted with a heady feeling of relief.

More sounds – a soft thud against the woollen carpet, followed by a more solid impact as a heavier object was tossed on the ground. "You'd do best to not treat your superiors as simple servants," the General directed towards Quistis, his voice hard, but from the sound of it, on the move. Squall's guess proved itself true as he heard once more the squeak of rubber on wood from the far side of the room, and a loud click as the door latch was released. The footsteps stepped around the open door, echoing in the empty bowels of the deserted hallways beyond…. _or maybe not so deserted, _Squall thought grimly as he picked up on a disembodied voice ringing out from somewhere further down the corridor. The door was shut firmly before he could register the General's reply but all that mattered was that his quarters were being guarded, possibly monitored, and he had no idea how the infiltration had occurred so quickly…

_Learning something of Galbadia's efficiency, Rinoa? I suppose it also helped that I gave you the guided tour. Gotta love gratitude…_

Quistis had not yet said a word, something which Squall interpreted to mean that he should not yet come out of hiding. Both of them were listening intently as the voice which had spoken upon the General's exit was still raised in speech, punctuated in between by Mandagul's deeper, more gruff tone. The walls were too frustratingly thick to pick up on even stray words, and the conversation came to an end with Squall having gleaned nothing in the way of information on the current status quo… the General's footsteps clomped past the door, fading into the distance where he was no doubt heading for the elevator and the inhabited regions of the Garden. 

_Helpless. I'm so damn helpless right now… that bastard could be doing anything down there and here I am holed up in bed like a bloody king. _

**_Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You should be honoured that you're being waited hand on foot by the gorgeous Vice-Commander of _****_Balamb_********_Garden_****_._**

Squall started in shock, flipping his eyes open to stare wildly around the room and then immediately felt guilty that he'd failed to wait for Quistis to give the all clear. The room was empty of any other soul anyway, and the lingering traces of the General were rapidly dissipating like a boring person's name. Squall jerked his face up to Quistis' face, hardly believing what he was hearing, but the blank, glassy sheen of her cerulean orbs was all the indication that he needed for the truth to assert itself…

**_Why the shocked look, Mr Stoic? We've experimented with mind speech before, and it now seems like the appropriate time to remind ourselves of that fact, don't you agree? Eavesdroppers are abound; blind luck no one picked up the noise you made when you snapped out of it. No time to waste… I need to brief you on what's been happening, and you need to brief me on why. _**

One thing was for sure, Quistis could always be counted on to pull some surprises out of her party hat, and the explanation of how she did it was _always_ something which seemed to have to wait – mind speech had been in experimentation at the Garden even before Squall's time as Commander, and to his knowledge was still in its infant stages of development. For Quistis to step out of the dark with such surprisingly honed skills… Squall shook his head in bemusement, wondering just how much else she was hiding and planning to throw his way in the future, but for the moment he shuffled his unimportant questions away for storage and tuned his attention to the more serious matter at hand. 

_Right. You first, and I'll join the dots as you go along._

**_Fine with me. _**Quistis' voice echoed around the hollows of his head with startling no-nonsense clarity as she plunged into her explanation without ceremony.**_ It all started at _****_06:52_****_, like I told the General – you should know how I get up early to personally supervise the Curfew lift. Of all sights to run into this morning, what do I see but one Selphie Tilmitt half dead on her feet dragging of all people, the thoroughly bedraggled and bleeding Squall Leonhart, through the Garden walkway? Hyne knows it looked like homicide… _**Quistis' mind voice lilted with dry humour accentuated by a mental roll of the eyes, and Squall found himself strangely able to appreciate the quirkier side of the situation. Quistis however, was quick to sober. **__**

**_I could hardly get anything out of her. The two of you had been fighting, that much was clear to me – not with each other, judging by the Grat blood, but Grats couldn't have inflicted burns like the ones you and Selphie were sporting all over. Great Hyne, the two of you could've jumped in a lava pool for kicks for all I'd have known. All Selphie could say was something about a Limit… _**

_She was right. _Squall interrupted, grimness colouring the edge of his thoughts. He recalled the ferocity of that roaring anger, directed against the Sorceress before being unwillingly tamed by the same Sorceress's hand and unleashed again at her bidding… the white wind seemed to howl in his ears once more as he dipped an oar into the memory. He hadn't comprehended what had been going on in the physical realm, only concerned at the time with grappling at the very core of the fury that had been timely released by his Sorceress adversary. The sensation of guilt nagged at Squall's stomach at the thought of Selphie getting caught in the middle of the crossfire…

**_Sorceress? What? _**

Squall started, temporarily forgetting that his thoughts were being laid bare to whatever mental eye Quistis had projected into his mind. Her voice was raised in alarm as her instinctual SeeD apprehension of Sorceress-related issues sprang into life, and Squall knew that she was not going to appreciate what he was about to tell her… still, as Quistis had correctly put it, there was no time to waste. He had to be direct, unfeeling, cold… in other words, he just had to be himself.

_The one and only sweet, innocent, Sorceress Rinoa – as far as I can tell, she's the instigator behind everything that's occurred in the Garden these past forty eight hours… the illusions, Selphie's injuries, my own, the Garden's infiltration… and that's the other thing. She held me at invisible knife point in the Training Centre, reading out all these bizarre terms and conditions on behalf of Galbadia… _Squall paused, struggling to compose himself as he turned over Rinoa's words in his mind, like meat roasting on a spit.

_:"You will escort the SeeD known by the name of Selphie Tilmitt to the city of Esthar, guarding this individual with the utmost of your strength and skill and in cases most extreme, with your life…":_

Squall paused again, allowing Quistis to absorb the thoughts he was radiating in her direction.

**_What… on earth?_**

_:"…know now that the untimely demise of Ms. Tilmitt before her appointed surrendering into Galbadian custody will result in severe repercussions for not only the captured citizenry of the city of Esthar, but additionally for the continuous welfare of the military faction, Balamb Garden and whomever else the nation of Galbadia chooses to punish for your incompetence…":_

**_This is outrageous. Esthar? Captured? Dear Hyne, do you mean that…_**

_:"…these are the basic conditions Galbadia demands of your precious Garden in exchange for the safety of the entire Esthar population, including its President, government advisory boards and of course, everyone's favourite darling, Ellone…":_

The silence that followed thereafter was truly bitter.

_They have us, so to speak, by the balls. _Squall couldn't be bothered trying to sum up the situation with something more quaint, but Quistis either didn't notice or couldn't have cared less. She seemed to be chewing on a mental set of nails as she was finally brought to an understanding of the context of the morning's drama, and Squall could sense an ominous pressure building up in his head as though she was exerting barely sufficient control to refrain from exploding then and there. 

_Calm down… Quisty. _The pet name slipped hesitantly into his thoughts and hooked onto his outgoing message before he could reel it back. He rarely addressed any of his colleagues with such comfortable familiarity, even one whom he had known virtually the entire span of his life… but somehow, it seemed appropriate for this particular situation. Something childishly naïve, a piece of absurdity on his part to neutralise the rancid cocktail of betrayal, disbelief and horror exploding in their midst… latched together once more, himself and his old orphan friend, uniting in the face of one more adversity when it had been hoped that the previous was the last…

**_It's okay. I'm okay. _**Quistis' mind voice resounded in Squall's head once more, gaining a stouter resolution with the second utterance. A grateful warm afterglow filled Squall's mind with a yellow tint, emanating a sisterly affection and wrapping around his thoughts with the likeness of a mental embrace. **_I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised to be double-crossed; it comes with the job too often._** **_It was just a real blow to the heart... I must be getting old._** Her soft mind laughter sounded slightly forced, but Squall permitted himself to smile anyway, appreciating the temporary lift of the dark cloud hovering over both of their heads. It felt… good to smile, even when there didn't seem to be much to be amused about. He was surprised to find himself admitting it… him, of all people. **_I'm sorry Squall. It must have been a… greater shock to you. _**

Squall tried to shrug dismissively, but he knew his thoughts spoke of a different level of emotion which Quistis no doubt could detect. _We can't let our personal relationships get in the way of our duties – you taught me as much yourself. This isn't the first time anyway… Edea and Seifer… why should this time be any different?  _ 

**_You're right Squall… I forgot myself for a bit back there. _**Quistis admitted her lapse in discipline a bit hurriedly, as though trying to spare Squall further discomfort by prolonging the subject.**_ But look, I haven't finished up yet. _**Laughter now forgotten, Quistis rearranged her composure and backtracked to the traces of her lost rhythm. Squall conceded, giving her his full attention and relieved that she had been considerate enough to drop what was a touchy and irrelevant subject. **__**

**_Like I said before, Selphie wasn't in good enough shape for lengthy explanations… Luckily I had curatives in stock, which I gave to her on the spot. Not enough left for you though, which had me worried – we were on the way to the infirmary, hefting you along, and that's where we got intercepted. _**Quistis' mind voice grew more intense, as though she were leaning forward to emphasise her following points. **_Plain clothed Galbadians judging from their accents, at least ten in the group that stopped us on the way but Hyne knows how many more there were in the Garden. Obviously the intention was to keep a low profile, but that's not what I was really concerned with. The matter of contention was how they'd gained admittance into the Garden without proper, necessary protocol and before lock down had been lifted. _**

Squall winced, knowing where this was headed, but it had to be said.

**_Right. You realise it too? Garden Code, article 10, line 15… Higher level Garden Administration have such powers, but most importantly, SeeDs upgraded to Elite status also have those privileges. Balamb Garden only recognises three Elites, other than us._**

Squall closed his eyes. Quistis could be utterly relentless when she chose to be.

**_Selphie Tilmitt. Zell Dincht… _**

Quistis' mind voice wavered, as though losing some of her generated nerve in the wake of revelation.

**_… And _****_Irvine_****_ Kinneas._**

Squall released the breath he had been holding and turned his eyes toward the pattern of cracks in the ceiling which had been the centre of his attention the previous night… a night which he was beginning to long for as a time of blissful ignorance, a time in which he had had friends as friends and not as enemies, a time in which he had not fully appreciated the worth of friendship and its fragile nature. A time of too little appreciation for family, a time of self pity, self immersion, selfishness… Too late, too late… 

Too late for so many things. 

**_It might not be what we think. _**Quistis' reasoning cut through the dark ambience like the beacon of hope that it was. **_He may have been forced. Coerced maybe. But enrolled under the _****_Galbadian_********_Garden_****_ Bill… that automatically makes him obligated to serve in the Galbadian military forces. I can just see it now… leading the whole parade up to the Garden gates, swaggering and turning on that charm…_**

_… like a firehose… _Squall chipped in drily.

**_… and just like that, we're at the mercy of the most hot-headed nation ever to grace this unfortunate earth. _**Quistis noticeably ground her jaw in irritation. **_There's not much we can do about him though, unless we give the Garden Code a good shake down after this… and_** **_I don't know if we'll be able to send word to any of our allies – the connection signals to Trabia must have been shorted out by now, just like our line to Esthar. Maybe we could count on Zell…_**

_Maybe, maybe not. He probably won't be back for ages._

**_Ever the optimist, aren't you Squall? But I have to admit that you're right. _**Quistis submitted to the gloomy facts with a mental sigh. **_All the way in Centra cleaning up that infestation… those dragons will keep him occupied for a while yet, and he won't be in a hurry to get back either unless he picks up on the Garden's severed signals… and even if he does, we wouldn't want him to risk anything rash that might put Esthar's captives at risk. I'm convinced that Galbadia and Rinoa were serious – I've seen enough this morning to be certain that they mean business. _**Quistis paused, savouring another thought. **_Which leads me to ask – any idea on what they want Selphie for? The whole request… it's so… so bizarre! It… reminds me of the hunt for heirs back in Adel's time, although who'd have thought that Selphie had that type of potential in her… do you think that's the reason?_**

_Could be. That may be the reason why Galbadia wants to keep such a low profile – just think of the panic that would kick in if everyone started thinking they had another Adel on their hands. But… I don't know. I'm just the emotionally blackmailed delivery boy. I'm not supposed to question these things or things around me might go kaboom… _Squall's projected thoughts had taken on a bland, monotone quality as he proceeded to turn away from the unbearable predicament that he had conveniently fallen into.

**_So that's it then? You'll turn over an innocent soul to the enemy and just hope for the best? _**There was an irresistibly dangerous edge to Quistis' mind voice which forced him to pause and listen. **_As soon as Selphie enters that city, there's no telling what will happen to her or how she is going to be used in Galbadia's future plans. I've no clue why she's suddenly of so much worth to that nation, but the fact that they're prepared to go to hell and back for her safe deliverance is a pretty good indication that something serious is going down which we don't know about… _**

_I'm perfectly aware of that. You don't need to remind me. _It was now Squall's turn to get testy.****_But tell me, what the hell can we do to resist? You summed up the whole situation before – Galbadia definitely means business, and we've got no choice but to keep them nice and happy, just like how we deal with any other client. Besides, what with the emphasis that they're placing on me keeping Selphie safe, I somehow doubt that they'd go to all that trouble only to do away with her the second she arrives. _

**_Point taken, but how can we be guaranteed that the Esthar hostages and citizenry will be equally ensured their safety? What if Selphie is an ingredient of some… master plan to blow up Galbadia's power to insane proportions, especially when they have a Sorceress at the helm of their operations? Are you just going to pass them a… a missing piece of a puzzle, so to speak? _**

_I don't know. I just don't know. _Squall was only a fraction away from breaking into a mental snarl as the frustration within him began to mount. _I don't have any answers to those questions and neither do you. But as the Commander of a Garden which contains over one hundred enrolled students excluding staff, I'm aware that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. _Squall calmly closed his eyes, injecting a steadying dose of stony self control into the highway of veins coursing throughout his body, and when he spoke again his mind voice was cold to the touch. _General Mandagul was right, Quistis. We're playing for high stakes here – human lives, no less. It's not just the lives of those in Esthar which are at stake, but any human targets which Galbadia and Rinoa think are suitable fodder to use against us in a psychological war of blackmail. If surrendering Selphie will appease them, then so be it – I'll escort her to their doorstep, and then we can plan our next move._

Quistis did not reply immediately, seemingly grappling with the icy and insensitive brand of Leonhart logic and not knowing where to start to refute it. 

_We can't let personal relationships interfere with what needs doing._

**_No. It's not that. _**Quistis denied. **_Oh fine, I admit it. I can't get over that fact… but my opinions on that temporarily aside, I also get the impression that this is a no-win situation no matter what path you choose. Whether Selphie is in Galbadian hands or not, they still have the ability to strike us and other people from a distance. Keeping Selphie here or letting her go… it doesn't seem to change the outcome. If we kept Selphie in the Garden, we'd at least have a greater chance at providing her protection and surveillance…_**

_But on the other hand, taking Selphie to Esthar will buy us time without aggravating Galbadia any further. And I don't know about you, but I really don't want to see what Galbadia can do when they've got the shits._

**_Swear jar, Squall. _**It was an automatic reaction, and one which Quistis herself didn't seem to be aware of at first until it finally upon her – she couldn't help but crack a smile despite trying her best to hold it back, and Squall sensed the illumination of the shadowy recesses of his thoughts with yellow laughter. 

_Just put it on my tab. _

It still amazed Squall to find that they could simultaneously pull humour out of their hats in even the most dire of situations… but having grown up together, it only seemed natural that they should find a common ground somewhere despite their ever present differences. Quistis then sighed heavily, drawing Squall's attention back to the matter at hand, but from the sound of things, she was done with locking horns over him in regards to the unresolvable issue.

**_I guess there's no point in arguing about this any further – I can't change your mind, and I don't think I would want to since it's you who's supposed to know best. Just keep what I've said in mind, okay? And… go easy on Selphie. _**

_What are you implying?_

**_Look, it's no secret that you two are chalk and cheese… just try to be civil, alright? And understanding, if you can muster the strength for it. She'll probably be wanting to apologise for that bonk on the head she gave you the moment she sees you, so that'll be a good place to start…_**

_Excuse me? You're saying she hit me? _Squall blinked in disbelief.

**_Nasty bump that one – I cleared it up for you though, but I guess it's still itchy. I suppose Selphie had her reasons… huh, Hyne knows I feel like doing that to you sometimes, so she's beaten me to it._**

_Thanks. _Squall didn't bother to restrain his sarcasm. _That's something I've got to ask her about when I get out here…_

**_… and no time like the present. We've probably talked about all this as much as we can, so it'd be best if you don't keep Mandagul waiting. _**

_What's the deal with him, anyway? I've never heard of him before today, so where the hell did he sprout from? _Squall pondered as he struggled to lever himself off the flattened pillows, with Quistis providing a supporting hand. 

**_Search me… probably an insignificant candidate who's the appropriate type to head an outing trying to keep a low profile. He's been an annoying little gnat these past five hours, believe me, so I have a feeling his superiors were relieved to pawn him off on a mission like this. _**Quistis' mind voice was wrinkled with contempt.**_ The only helpful thing he did was to get you up here since he didn't want you treated in a public infirmary, which means that Kadowaki never knew what happened to you… and now that idiot already thinks he owns the place… give him some room and he'll be crowing at sunup. Anyway, he'll be escorting you part of the way to Esthar, for reasons I'm not sure of… probably with some of the other Galbadians too. Security measures? Or maybe he'll be generously providing a train fare?_**

_Boat fare more likely, if we're heading at least part of the way to Esthar. It'll be about three days journey to FH with weather like this… they'll probably drop us off at the train tracks and bid us a good time. Whatever, I don't care if he tags along for some of the way. Safety in numbers after all._

**_Too bad you can't choose your own company. _**Quistis remarked idly, her fingers working at the knots in the bindings wrapped around Squall's upper arm. **_Help me out here – we've got to get you presentable quick smart. _**

Squall obeyed, tugging at the bandages which hugged his left wrist and stripping them away. As they came loose in his hands, he peered in surprise at the pale, unblemished skin which lay beneath, expecting at least some traces of red hue. _I thought you said I'd been burnt?_

**_Forgive me if I exaggerated some of the details… _**Quistis winked conspiratorially. **_I wasn't lying about you being hurt in that way, but I figured a couple more bandages here and there could help you out in your invalid act. Luckily for us, that rock head Mandagul wasn't too observant. _**

_… But at least bright enough to know a boring lecture when he hears one._

**_Enough of that potty mouth, my dear commander, or I shall leave you trussed up like the turkey that you are… _**Quistis yanked at the strip of cloth anointing Squall's brow for emphasis, and turned in mock anger to flick the dressings into a tray on the bedside cabinet. **_You handle the rest – I'll get your gear. _**

Squall watched out of the corner of his eyes as Quistis crossed the room to where his cupboard stood in the corner, swinging the doors outwards and rummaging inside. The outfit she pulled off the hangars was a memorable one; the casual leather attire and the fur-lined collar of the black bomber jacket peeped out of the corner of one bent arm where she had draped them, and Squall felt a familiar stirring of nostalgia as the prospect of adventuring once more into the wilderness of the world settled upon his shoulders like the arm of an old friend. 

_Back to doing what I originally signed up to do… I wish it were under better circumstances, but at least now I can feel as though I'm actually doing something… making a difference, or an impact… protecting. Protecting the ones I love._

Squall faltered as he stumbled over that final thought. 

_I'm sorry Selphie. But I have to protect… Ellone. And my father. I have to atone for what I failed to do in the first place. I know you'll understand…_

Try as he might though he couldn't fight off the guilt, for all his moral lecturing. He could clearly see Selphie skipping before his eyes, cutting a swift yellow path through the cold Garden interior with clipboard in hand and her heart permanently in the other… those green eyes which swam with hopeful fire and that ready smile, the words 'Festival Committee' always on the verge of being uttered from between those upturned lips. A yellow blur… sunlight. Always like sunlight. Fleeting and bright, injecting something that was lacking in the stiff marble halls and rigid soul of the Garden which he now headed… cold, like its Commander. The way he liked it. But his thoughts were wrenched back to the painful memory of that cheerful glowing girl as he had seen her only yesterday, completely oblivious to the turn of events which were about to slice through her spacey world of music numbers and fireworks. He couldn't shake the fact that he had no choice but to have a hand in that destruction…

_I know you don't deserve it. Nobody does. But… you're a SeeD. You should accept sacrifices better than anyone else. Things can't always go the way we want them to. And… I know that you care as much about Ellone as I do… you won't want anything to happen to her. That's just the way you are, Selphie… it wouldn't matter if I wanted to stop you anyway…_

Squall could almost feel himself being sucked into the truth that he wanted fervently to be real, but they were comforting thoughts nonetheless. _Selphie, you can save Ellone… and Esthar. I've already failed, but it doesn't mean I have to let you fail too. _

That decided it. Squall felt his jaw tighten with chilling resolve.

_I'm not going to let you fail. I'll get you to Esthar, even if I have to knock you out and carry you there myself._

He had to admit he was almost scaring himself… some sort of fanatical determination was wrapping its claws around his chest in the spur of the moment, making it hard to breathe and think…

**_I'm going to get the sentry outside to notify Mandagul. _**Quistis' mind voice cut across Squall's fretting and he jumped in embarrassment, forgetting that they were still connected in that way. However if she had borne witness to Squall's latest series of reflections, she either chose not to comment or ignored them completely. Standing in arm's reach of the doors to the suite with Squall's garments in hand, Quistis hesitated, as though combing her mind for anything else that needed to be said before she set the boulder of events in motion.

**_There won't be time for goodbyes and well wishes when the General gets here, so I might as well say them now… _**Quistis' smile radiated from where she stood, floating across the length of the room to pat Squall's cheeks with sisterly affection. **_Good luck and stay safe, Squall. No matter how much I rant and rave, I have complete trust in your good judgment, so I hope you'll make the best possible decisions for yourself and Selphie… and I know you'll look after her, so I don't even need to ask. I couldn't have thought of a better candidate for the job._**

It was a jolt to hear Rinoa's words being reiterated by Quistis and it almost dampened the mood, but Squall did his best to ignore it. It was no harm if Quistis had as much faith in his abilities as his opponent did…

**_So I guess this is goodbye for awhile. _**Quistis shrugged in defeat, keeping her leave-taking short and giving in to the demands of fate and the power hungry nation which lurked outside the presently closed doors. Squall nodded and managed a lopsided smile, knowing that words weren't necessary to convey the emotions he was feeling – Quistis could practically read him like an open book… although he hoped that his emotions weren't so bare to her scrutiny that she could detect the guilt within, throbbing in time to his racing heart…

A few more heartbeats scurried away before Quistis stirred from her spot on the carpet, and as Squall looked on with his mouth set in a neutral line, she reached for the door latch which she pulled down upon with a firm hand. The hinges squeaked in protest as the door was pushed open, releasing a catch of golden light from the hallway which spilt eagerly onto the carpet like a spreading yellow stain. 

Quistis leaned forward through the opening, the light bouncing off the highlights in her neatly styled hair and she gathered a speaking breath, expelling the necessary words without hesitation in a voice which bounced off the hollow wooden walls to reach whoever was stationed beyond. Squall could almost hear a faraway rumble of thunder as the imagined boulder trembled then abruptly surged into motion, no doubt destined for a doomed and shattered death at the bottom of its reckless descent… 

"Please notify General Mandagul immediately – The Commander has awakened."   

*** * ***

Congratulations to anyone who read this chapter in its entirety, which numbers 10 540 words and counting… *__* longest chapter to date, since I didn't want to carve up the two parts! This is the last time Squall and Quistis will be discussing things for a long while, and it gave me the chance to interpret how I think they'd converse with each other… as for the mind speech thing, it was just something which I thought would be plausible in an environment so dedicated to magic – I mean, heck, if you can summon kick-ass deities, then why not mind speech? =P *Shrug* Also, don't expect 'General Mandagul' to play any important part… just another disposable character I pulled out of the air to be a prop. I'm not a big fan of creating new characters… -__-;; 

Anyway, there's no telling when I'll be able to update again so don't expect any fast moves from me… ;) I'm amazed that I've been able to get this chapter out right before my exams start… yes, I have weird priorities. XD So then, a few more words to out sponsors:

Karla: I've left out the 3 since you don't like it… ;) thankyou again for the positive review, and lol, I didn't think it was corny so never fear! ^__^ *Shakes your hand*

CTHSKI: Heh heh, rest assured Rinoa's intentions are far from good, even if it may seem like they are… *evil laugh* wait and see, for all shall be revealed in time! *nod* Ta muchly for putting up with Rinoa's rantings, and I'll see to it that they won't happen very often! ^_^;; 

Coming up next: Part 2 kicks in, as well as the long awaited journey to Esthar. Don't expect things to run so smoothly though, since there're other forces apart from Galbadia who seem to have an interest in Selphie's unknown, but obviously very powerful, abilities… will Squall be able to successfully carry out his guardian duties? Stay tuned, and take care everyone! ^__^  

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	14. PART 1 OVERVIEW

**PART 1 OVERVIEW:**

One year has passed since the defeat of Sorceress Ultimecia, and peace seemingly reigns once more in the sleepy island of Balamb… life within the Garden has been restored to its usual relaxed state of affairs, under the leadership of Headmaster/Commander Squall Leonhart and his level of Garden administration, including his Vice-Commander, Quistis Trepe. Balamb Garden is still called home to two recognized SeeD Elites, Selphie Tilmitt and Zell Dincht, the former going about her usual efforts to rustle up volunteers for the Garden Festival Committee (_Prologue, Chapter 1_) while the latter is on leave conducting a monster purge in Centra (_Chapter 12_). 

However, it would appear that not all is well in paradise… already struggling with the prospect of sitting in an office all day instead of fulfilling the duties as a SeeD and emotionally battered by a bitter fallout with Sorceress Rinoa Heartilly who has since returned to Galbadia, Squall is confronted with an armed spectre from the past – none other than his father Laguna Loire, who turns out to be a convincingly realistic illusion. (_Chapter 2_). Unknown to him, Selphie also encounters ghostly illusions of her own within a storm, witnessing the last moments of three Trabia Garden SeeDs before the missile impact the year before, and then miraculously walking away from a fall down the stairs with hardly any injuries to speak of. (_Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 6_). The mystery deepens as Quistis fails to pick up on any traces of recognizable magic from the residue of the shattered illusion of Laguna, instead reaching a possible conclusion involving the abilities of Ellone to revisit events and people from the past – further suggestion that Ellone may be involved is given weight by the discovery that all communication lines to Esthar are down (_Chapter 5_). 

Squall and Selphie both retire for the night, but rest cannot come easily. Squall silently berates himself for neglecting his loved ones in Esthar, especially since they now appear to be the victims of foul play, and his sense of worthlessness and incompetence is heightened by the memory of Rinoa's departure to whom he believes he failed in his duty as protector. (_Chapter 7_). Meanwhile, Selphie is inflicted with nightmares that recall her experience within the Time Compression of the previous year, in which she accidentally stumbled upon Trabia Garden in the minutes before it was destroyed by missiles. Before she wakes, she is briefly contacted by a mysterious speaker who hints at a significant power which she unknowingly holds in her person. Shaken, Selphie convinces herself that as a SeeD there is nothing that she can't do, and decides to spend the last hours of night working off some steam in the Training Centre, not knowing that Squall has also decided to do the same thing (_Chapter 7_).

Things take a nasty turn as Squall, while dispatching Grats, is suddenly seized by an invisible force who claims to be none other than Rinoa, communicating over a long distance – but her mind voice is that of Ellone's. (_Chapter 8_). Revealed as the instigator behind the illusions, she explains that Galbadia have successfully invaded Esthar and taken all of its citizens hostage, Ellone and Laguna included. Threatening the safety of Squall's loved ones, Rinoa states the terms that Galbadia will release the hostages on – Squall must personally escort Selphie to Esthar and not permit any harm to come of her, otherwise the consequences for all concerned will be lethal. Enraged, Squall unwittingly unleashes a Limit, but this is quickly contained by Rinoa. In another part of the Training Centre, Selphie is abruptly contacted by Ellone who pleads with Selphie to help Squall, and Selphie readily obliges. Rinoa however is prepared for this, and decides to use the opportunity as a way of testing what sort of lengths Ellone will go to in order to protect Selphie from harm – Rinoa had previously experimented with this by causing Selphie to fall down the stairs in Chapter 4, upon which Ellone somehow broke her fall. All of these events occur in _Chapter 9_. 

Rinoa firstly conjures up another illusion, this time of Selphie, and this time, solid enough to inflict damage. After a fierce fight, Selphie defeats the illusion, but Rinoa then plays her trump card by unleashing Squall's Limit upon Selphie. Just as Rinoa suspected, Ellone mentally reaches out to Selphie with the instruction to knock Squall unconscious in order to stop the Limit. Selphie, in doing this, also unknowingly knocked Rinoa out of her connection with Squall. (_Chapter 10_). 

_Chapter 11 -_ Flung back into her own body, Rinoa awakens in Esthar and is greeted by her father, General Caraway. The lies and motives of Galbadia come to light – Ellone and the Esthar citizens are not hostages and in danger, but instead have been rendered immobile by Ellone herself who has transported them all into the Dreamworld where the Galbadians cannot follow. The magnitude of such an act has had a fatal effect on Ellone, who is effectively dying from the effort of maintaining the boundaries of the Dreamworld. For some not yet revealed reason, it is absolutely imperative to Galbadia that Ellone not die. Rinoa has been junctioning to Ellone in order to supply her with energy, but Ellone is instead using that energy to sustain the Dreamworld and for brief communication with the outside world, neglecting her own will to live. (Through junctioning, Rinoa has also been able to pick up on scraps of what lies within the Dreamworld and using them to boost her own powers; this is how she had been able to create tangible illusions based on the memories within the Dreamworld.) Selphie is then revealed as the 'heir' – the heir of what is unknown, but her safe delivery to Esthar has implications with Ellone's dying state, and this is yet to be revealed. Rinoa spends some time contemplating the status quo, and the chapter ends with her unusual determination that Ellone, Selphie and herself live for the sake of Galbadia's plans. Her intentions are far from honourable though…

The first half of_ Chapter 12 _covers the events of Chapter 10 from the view point of Squall who had been frozen in a comatose state while Selphie fought to save him. He had not borne witness to this, having been swallowed by a black void of Rinoa's making, but was still able to pick up on the sensation of being touched by Selphie as she inquired as to his health, and was also able to feel his Limit being unleashed. After being nearly completely consumed by the void when Selphie delivered the stroke to his head, Ellone was able mentally connect with Squall to guide him back into reality, although he was not able to recognise her at the time. He also somehow managed to find time to feel relief that there was rescue from the intense loneliness he had felt in that dark void.

The final half of _Chapter 12_ sees Squall regain consciousness in his room with Quistis on hand to tend to him. He is forced to play dead however as a Galbadian general by the name of Mandagul is introduced, who will escort Squall and Selphie part of the way to Esthar along with a small band of troops. When the general leaves, Quistis and Squall are free to exchange facts via mind speech on the occurrences of the past 48 hours; Galbadian troops led by Mandagul had arrived before curfew and gained admittance to subtly infiltrate the Garden with their presence. This entrance was perfectly legitimate however; Quistis and Squall came to the conclusion that the Elite status of the sharp shooter Irvine Kinneas, enrolled under the Galbadian Garden Bill, had most probably been used to gain entry. Whether or not he had been forced or willingly complied is left to be seen. Squall then brings Quistis up to date on Galbadia's intentions, the involvement of Rinoa and being blackmailed into bringing Selphie to Esthar. Seeing no way out of it, the two decide to cooperate until further notice, and Squall prepares to meet up with Selphie who is being held in Galbadian custody.

What is so special about Selphie that so many lives must be threatened for her continued existence? How is this linked to Ellone? What sort of dangers threaten Selphie that will make Squall's protection crucial? How will he tell her that she must be bartered over to Galbadia at journey's end? Anything can happen, including unexpected feelings on affection… so begins Part 2, and the journey begins!  


	15. PART 2: A matter of trust

Lol, I betcha all thought I was dead and gone, right? XD *Gets up from her casket and does a few cartwheels* The truth of the matter was that I kinda lost my inspiration and motivation since my last upload, and writing this fan fiction is also a low priority in comparison to the other stuff I have to do, like my assignments and working on art. But no matter how long it takes for me to upload, know that I'll *never* abandon this and I will see it through all the way to the end. ^__^ I made an implied promise to write a whole story from the very first chapter I uploaded, and I'll be keeping my word, so never fear! Lots of thankyous are overdue on my part to the people who still read and reviewed this story even when I disappeared for a spell, and I'll reply to each of you at the end of the chapter. ^__^ 

For now though, this is the start of Part 2 which will see more action and interaction then the preliminaries of Part 1, and it's also time to start justifying the tag of 'Squalfie' that I decided to designate to this story in the first place! ;) *Hint hint* I hope you all enjoy reading this chapter, and I'll meet you all again at the finishing line…! ^^

Note – pretty much all of my italics were wiped out during the upload, so I had to substitute them for bold lettering. -___- So wherever there's bold, it's meant to be italicised! 

**- PART 2 -**

****

**CHAPTER 13: A matter of trust**

****

It started in sunshine. The creamy blue and white basin of an early spring sky sailed overhead with a joyous glow to its rich tint, and the happy peal of birdsong only seemed to heighten the glory of the first fine warm day that many had been longing for during the hard winter months. The crystalline snow still lay in scattered piles along the walkway and dripped lazily from the swaying pines, but the vicious winds had ceased to bite, their frosty teeth softened to a mere caress which spoke of the promise of long heady days soaked with yellow sunshine… 

_Laughter.__ All around. She trotted up that familiar cobbled path, heels clacking a merry rhythm upon the cracked paving. All smiles. Hello, how d'ye do? Very well thankyou. That's good. That's very good… clack clack. Skip over here, gambol over there. Nothing can hurt you in this place._

_It was so bright. She peered through narrowed eyes, shading her face from the worst of the glare. The magnificent Garden arches rose and fell in a graceful apex, shadowed starkly against the brilliance of the overhead __midday__ sun… and then from somewhere deep within the building's depths came the ringing of bells, tolling the hour with their sweet metallic voices. She counted silently under her breath, even as she continued to gaze thoughtfully skywards. _

_One… two…_

_She'd never known it to be so bright. It was too early in spring to expect such fine weather… the light seemed to bounce off every surface… springing deftly from the surface of exposed skin, catching off the polished marble of the Garden tiers, refracting into a million shattered pieces of spinning multi-coloured flakes and turning the unmelted snow into burning coronas of white winter suns… and it only seemed to growing brighter as the seconds resonated through the shimmering air._

_… three… four… five…_

_She had stopped walking. Others passed her by, seemingly oblivious to the overpowering radiance and as she stared in wonder, their forms wavered and faded around the edges, as though they were nothing but walking illusions. She shook her head in puzzlement, but it was no trick of the eye – suddenly, everything seemed to be trembling with the effort of holding itself together… _

_… six… seven… eight…_

_The world was lurching beneath her feet and she stumbled, suddenly sensing the ground under her sagging and melting into a confusing tapestry of colours. She looked around wildly, motioning to anyone she could see with flailing arms, but they just wouldn't listen! They just couldn't see! The world was crumbling to pieces while they were still in it, and they weren't even aware! She tried to call to them, her mouth forming silent words that only she could hear, and when she tried to scream, it was a scream for her ears only. Still, she screamed. A racking sob tore itself from her chest and she could not stop the spasms, even as the flickering spectres of uniformed SeeDs continued to smile and nod their heads in greeting. Hello. How d'ye do? Their faces seemed to liquefy as their lips sunk into the dripping slag of their faces, sunny grins distorted into frighteningly distorted shapes… and yet they still smiled, oblivious. Hello. How d'ye do? _

_… nine… ten… eleven… _

_She cowered, stricken with loathing and horror as they converged around her with their chirpy words of good cheer, but suddenly she forced her eyes towards the sky again. A high pitched whining was filling her ears, and a feeling of bone numbing dread shot through her huddled frame like a chilling wind. She knew that sound. She knew what was making it. One look at the sky confirmed it, and she staggered backwards at the realisation that death was only a few meagre seconds away… only a few seconds to save them! Get away! Get away! Run! _

_……_

_Don't just stand there!!!_

_She howled in frustration, her fingers almost snapping in the tight enclosure of her balled fists. They stared stupidly at her, nothing but melted skin and bone decked in the gaudy regalia of SeeD hierarchy. Their lopsided grins were for her only, the ashen hue of bone rendered startlingly clear as their bodies wasted away… jaws clacking noisily as they chirruped in unison… hElLo. HoW d'Ye dO? HeLlO? HeLlLllOoOoOo……_

_… twelve._

_FLASH!_

_She heard the explosion as clearly as if she had been there. It not only tore through her senses but seemed to pass through her in a burning white wave of shattering noise, ripping her asunder from the inside out and blowing her upon the unforgiving winds. The world was crashing, crashing… falling! Screaming! Disorientated, she knew not whether she was facing up or down, but what she did know was that everything was dying… all around, all around… death was near enough to touch, resting heavily upon her tongue and plaguing her heels like a snapping hound. She smelt the burning. Licking flames towered high, swallowing the horizon and turning the happy sky a bloody crimson, choking it with the stench of smoke, scorched rock and the burning bones of the dead… sobbing, she surveyed the miserable scene of destruction, finding herself still standing in the middle of that cobbled road from which she had never moved after all. The winds sent grey ash spiralling past her comatose form, and she forced herself to breathe in. She inhaled death, drinking it to the gills. She swallowed guilt, rancid and foul. Couldn't stop it. Wouldn't. Couldn't. All. Your. Fault… you knew, you knew, why didn't you tell them? Dead and dust because of you. _

_All.__ Your. Fault.    _

****

_……_

_……?!_

****

_:Can__ you hear me…?:_

**_……_**

**_… Ellone?_**

**_……_**

**_W-what are you doing here?_**

_:This__ is the only way I can truly communicate with you now…:_

**_'Now'?_****_ Has something happened?_**

_:……:_

_:Yes__. But I can't tell you what… she might hear. I'm sorry.:_

**_:Who_****_ is 'she'? Or can't you tell me that either?:_**

:No. She will hear. I don't want you harmed… please trust me. It is not necessary for you to know yet…:

Ellone, I want to know if there's anything I can do to help. There must be a reason why you're reaching out to me!

:Stay safe. That is the first thing you should do… please don't risk your life in anything. I… I don't know what will happen if you should die…:

You shouldn't have to worry about me, so why the sudden concern? I'm a SeeD. I can handle whatever comes my way, right?

:Don't underestimate what you're up against… I wish I could tell you more, but she'll be sure to know…:

How? Are you being monitored in some way? Where are you speaking from? Are you still in Esthar?

:Yes… oh Hyne, she's coming. I have to go…: 

**Wait! Can you at least tell me… where I am? Why… do I keep seeing this dream?**

:…:

:Because this is the Dreamworld.:

:…:

:I don't know why you're seeing this. It's too soon… you shouldn't be in here yet…:

And just like that the voice was gone, leaving nothing behind in its wake except for a whirling eddy of ashes. Silence crept in to fill the void, bar for the occasional clatter of loose rubble as it stirred from within the bowels of the desolate ruin.

She closed her eyes and remembered.

*** * * * ***

Selphie blinked her way back into consciousness, her eyes watering as they struggled to adjust to the light pouring in from the partially open flap of the military tent. She paused for a moment, studying her surroundings with an inkling of confusion before the events of the past few hours snapped together in a satisfying whole in her foggy mind… the makeshift mattress beneath her was hard and scratchy, and she forced herself to sit up despite the protesting of her aching limbs. Yawning heavily, Selphie stretched and rubbed at her sleep-matted hair, aware of a certain puffiness around her eyes which meant that she'd lost more hours of sleep than she'd have cared to. **Give Galbadia some credit… at least they let you catch some z's in the first place!**

That jolted her back to the present. Still blinking owlishly but not yet standing up, Selphie squinted through the cracks of the tent opening, trying to discern what sort of activity was going on in the outside world. The small tent had been hastily erected on the outskirts of the Garden in a plain spot of grassland, far enough from the main path to be unnoticed and close enough to the Garden itself to be safe from wayward beasts. There were several voices, all conversational, and Selphie espied a few trailing shadows passing across the canvas with a relaxed military gait. **Well, if no one's about to give me a wake up call, then I'll just settle in for a little bit longer…** yawning again, Selphie pulled her legs off the ground and curled into the lumpy pillow, but she did not close her eyes. A bothered feeling was milling around in her stomach, and the spectre of the latest nightmare had not yet fully dissipated which was setting her nerves on edge. The pungent aroma of Grat blood was no help either; she'd not been permitted to shower in the Garden, having been escorted directly to the gates and to the small encampment that she now found herself within. In her exhausted state, she'd put up no resistance and had refrained from asking any questions, but now feeling somewhat rested, Selphie felt herself frowning as she mulled over certain issues for which she longed for explanations.

**I'm kinda worried about how Squall's doing… heh, that's the understatement of the century.** Selphie bit her lip as she recalled the sight of the ugly purple lump that had adorned her Commander's forehead and his horribly ashen face, and she had no idea how he had fared in the time between then and now. **Quistis**** gave all her curatives to me, and even that wasn't completely enough. I'm still itching like crazy, now that I think about it!** Beneath the grime that was coating almost the entire surface area of her limbs, Selphie could make out the raw pink hue of recently mended skin, coupled with the tender soreness of torn and wounded flesh. **The main wounds have closed at least, but those burns hurt like billy-o. Hyne knows Squall's Limits go for overkill…** She winced at the memory of the raging white tempest, idly scratching at a nagging itch in the crook of her knee as she rolled over impatiently onto her back to stare at the uninteresting curve of the top of the tent. 

**He'll be fine. Stop fretting. And anyway, manslaughter only carries a five year term you stupid, irresponsible little…!** Selphie rolled her eyes, realising her fingers were pulling the blanket into miniscule knots and she yanked her body to the side in a vain attempt to get comfortable. **I don't know why I'm worrying so much about him. I never did before, why start now? Bah, don't be an idiot. It's perfectly normal for friends to worry about friends. That is, if Squall could even be thought of as a friend. Weird… I never really thought about it. I just assumed… now that I think about it, we hardly have anything in common. Do friends always have things in common? What's the difference between a friend and an acquaintance? And… and… why in Hyne's name am I dissecting this now?** Selphie ground her teeth, feeling unusually short-tempered at herself. **Prioritise. We've worried enough about that. What about trying to figure out what Galbadia has to do with all of this?**

She drew a breath and slowly exhaled it, feeling the air whistle through her pouted lips as she swapped the issues in her mind and drew the second in line to the front of the queue. There had been no change in the gentle bustle outside the tent, and Selphie permitted herself to remain relaxed for a little longer as she pondered. **So the most imperialistic nation in this world just decides to turn up on your doorstep in the wee hours of morning in their bucket loads with no word of warning, and not even a small hello? Somehow, I'm under the impression that they didn't just want Balamb hotdogs… ******

"And the dreams…" Selphie muttered under her breath, remembering all too well the dank sensation that sleep had brought to her senses, and the unsettled feel of her stomach which had nothing to do with missing out on breakfast. "Ellone… in Esthar? Gotta be. Galbadia… there must be a link. A call of help, maybe? Darn it Ellone, why couldn't you talk to me… Can you hear me now?" Selphie paused and listened expectantly, but of course there was no reply and no unfamiliar shifting in her mind which usually accompanied Ellone's long distance calls. 

**Confusing.**** It's all just too much at the moment… why was I singled out by Galbadia? Am I under lock and key because… because they know about Ellone? Is that what this is all about?** Selphie suddenly felt stricken by a pang of alarm and she half sat up, staring intently at the sealed tent flap as though expecting a band of Galbadian militia to come storming in at any given moment. **Ooookay****… things are just getting too weird around here! How could Galbadia possibly know, unless… **

The lights seemed to click in Selphie's head almost instantaneously, and she chided herself for not having realised it earlier… Ellone communicating from the Dreamworld, in hiding and possibly even on the run… **unless they're the ones after Ellone – again, damn it, as if the first round wasn't enough!**

"Alrighty, that does it – I am so getting out of here…" Selphie whispered fiercely to herself, finally feeling some of her old energy returning to flood through her sluggish veins. The tent now seemed so stifling and hot, feeling less and less like the shelter it was intended to be and taking on the look of a constricting cage. Sitting up fully, Selphie discovered her boots where they had been tossed against the canvas closest to the foot of the mattress and hurriedly pulled them on, ignoring the uncomfortable feel of the mud that was squished in the pinched toes of her footwear and keeping a watchful lookout through the cracks of the entrance. **I dunno what they're planning to do with me… I don't particularly want to find out, and they can all go to hell before I act as a medium on Ellone's behalf! I have to get away some how, but…**

Upon turning down the heat of her feverish thoughts, it suddenly became painfully clear to Selphie that she'd been put at a disadvantage in advance – Galbadia had clearly anticipated the possibility of her actions, and she inwardly groaned as she observed the empty space on her belt and with a touch of more serious concern, the cold gaping holes in her channels where static fire usually culminated in its snapping, crackling glory… it had been awhile since she'd experienced such alien emptiness, and the mere thought of Galbadia having enough reason – and the means – to confiscate the powerhouses of raw Para-magic that were the Guardian Forces was a serious matter indeed.

**Fine, take my weapon, see if I care. But my GF's…!** Selphie felt suitably affronted on top of the annoying inconvenience of having discovered herself completely powerless in both a physical and magical sense. **What would Galbadia know about un-Junctioning GFs anyway? Did they have inside help or… **

The last of her inner complaints were butted out by a familiar electronic chime echoing in the distance, and Selphie froze as she registered the sound as it travelled on the still air, barely leaking into the silent enclosure of the tent. "The Garden intercom…?" she mused, relief slightly softening the edges of her anxiety at the confirmation that the Garden was still functioning regardless of the road show that had unexpectedly turned up outside the gates. Creeping as close to the tent flap as she dared without letting her silhouette give her away, Selphie strained to pick up on what scraps of the message were floating towards the encampment, but the human activity in the immediate area created an impeding layer of sound which made it impossible to properly discern the announcement. Determined, Selphie closed her eyes and concentrated, doing her utmost to block out the surrounding noise and honing her hearing onto the layer of background intonation…

**Damn, it's no use – I'd have never thought Galbadians do be so chatty… can't we at least figure out who's doing the talking though?** As though attempting to ease her internal frustration, the wind stirred into a lethargic sort of motion from where it had been resting among the leaves and trampled grass, lifting unintelligible stops and starts of the spoken message over the Garden wall and filtering the fragments through the tree tops on high. It was still too difficult to pick out individual words but the timbre of the voice had an unusual distinctive quality, stringing the muffled garble together like the fine strands of a web and even as Selphie struggled to place a name, it abruptly became apparent moments before the second closing chime rang through the woodland.

**By the hairs on the chin of my deceased granny…**** Squall?** Curiosity was quick to follow the immediate relief that the realisation brought and Selphie paused, suddenly at a loss as to what to do next. **If he's up and about, he'll probably be getting here shortly to bail me out of this mess which means we should stay put… but what if that doesn't happen? What if he decides to cart me off with these Galbadian jerks? Darn it, he'll probably do it to put an end to my Garden Committee schemes… ack!! the Garden Festival!!** Selphie slapped herself across the forehead in fright and unwittingly sent herself half reeling. **Who's going to be in charge if I have to leave?! I have to let Quistis know that I…**

The tent flap flipped open, startling Selphie out of her wits and causing her to stumble backwards by a few more footsteps. The glaring light outside illuminated the profile of a bored looking Galbadian soldier, and Selphie was forced to shield her face from the luminance bouncing off the circumference of his polished head gear.

The young man seemed to jump slightly, obviously not expecting the occupant of the tent to be standing within walking distance and rubbing feverishly at a curious hand-shaped red mark on her grimy forehead. Recovering quickly, his face regained its original straight-faced composure as he motioned outside with a flick of his chin. "The head general of this deployment has orders to prepare you for an immediate escort to a classified destination. You have until 0:05 to prepare and be on standby for further instructions." The soldier ducked out of sight almost immediately after delivering the clipped summons without waiting for any reply.

Stunned, Selphie blocked out the throbbing in her brow as she digested the soldier's words. **No choice in the matter. What did we expect? Oh Hyne, we're definitely in deep doo-doo now…** frustrated, Selphie kicked fruitlessly at the canvas floor with the toe of a boot, wishing that she had a decent outlet to release a bit of steam. **Escort?**** What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm perfectly happy here, thankyou very much! And if you think I'm gonna let you cart me outta here like a trussed up songbird, you've all got another thing coming…** She continued to scuff away at the rough material of the floor, hoping to at least create a hole in the Galbadian merchandise. **Don't expect me to sing about Ellone either, no sirree. Just you wait… I'll make you all regret dragging me along on your little expeditions…! Hate hate hate! I hate all of this!** With an almighty swing fuelled by the rising annoyance bubbling through her veins, Selphie felt the pointed tip of her boot catch on the fraying fabric underfoot and a shocking rip grated through the silent air, followed by a 'thump' as a certain unbalanced, disgruntled SeeD's rump made heavy contact with the ground. **Hate hate hate…!!!! I've had it up to here with pain today!! I need weapons!! I need magic!! I need more sleep…!! I… I…** Selphie balled her hands into tiny fists and squeezed her eyes shut, fumbling around in the dark for closure to that sentence, and all at once finding it.

**…I… I need to SCREAM!!!**

"… so like, I just walked right on in like I do every night and after ten years of the same old routine, you don't expect a bombshell to drop any time soon, right? Huh, I know better now. Women, you just can't turn your back on one for a second… I'm telling you Hal, get yourself a girl but don't be listening to any of that commitment crap they always spout. Take it from me, Galbadia divorcee number… t-three hundred and t-twenty t-t-three…" with a cracking sob, the disheartened uniformed youth sagged against the shoulder of his sympathetic, but yawning companion, drawing a few raised eyebrows and sniggers from soldiers roaming through the small encampment. "Er… look buddy," Hal said awkwardly, trying to inch away from the bawling human water fountain currently soaking his newly dry-cleaned uniform, "It's not that I don't feel for you or anything. I feel man, really I do. But like, er, I don't think this is the time to be worrying about that sort of stuff. C'mon, you're embarrassing me…! Git off! You sound worse than a woman, for Hyne's sake…!" 

**"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"******

At least two dozen heads swivelled simultaneously towards the tiny tent propped up near the centre of the encampment, while a flock of startled birds rose from the treetops in a flurry of flapping, screeching and loose feathers. The tinkle of broken glass from where it had been dropped against a rock in fright tickled the settling air. As a shocked silence settled upon the deafened ears of the comatose military band, the emptiness was suddenly broken by the lilt of an appreciative whistle.

"I take it back man. Nothing you can do would top PMS – or at least a bad night's sleep."

*** * ***

"That's it… nice and normal… nothing's wrong, everything's just fine and dandy…"

The outer layer of Squall's face remained neutral with only the slightest crease breaking his otherwise smooth forehead, although those drifting by him on their way in and out of the foyer gates may have wondered about the peculiar grinding noise which seemed to be emanating from their stiff-shouldered Commander – an intelligent few may have even correctly deduced it to be the result of too much teeth gnashing. Some may have also paused to consider the unexpected Galbadian entourage dogging his heels, but would quickly have associated their arrival with the recent announcement that had aired during their breakfast hours…

**I don't know why hardly anyone here seems too surprised. I guess to the Garden, it's business as usual… when did we drop our guard, anyway? With the Sorceress threat seemingly done away with for good, we became too soft, too trusting. One year ago, the sight of a Galbadian in Garden, let alone a handful of them, would've created mass panic… but even one year of shaky peace is proving that Galbadians simply can't be trusted. Somewhere along the way, we just plain forgot that…**

"Loosen up a bit, you look like a rock with legs… and remember, don't even contemplate playing a big hero."

**… and whose job was it to drum that into Garden in the first place? Whose job was it to keep Garden's standard high? Slipped up again, Leonhart. The Garden reflects the leader… I guess that means you're all morose, lovelorn fools. Maybe now that I just announced Quistis acting Commander while I'm gone, they'll understand who should've been chosen to lead in the first place. I won't be missed.**

"Did you hear me? Don't even think of starting something, Leonhart – we won't tolerate heroics."  

**And I wish that moronic blockhead of a General would just shut his trap.** Pride kept Squall from turning to acknowledge General Mandagul's incessant hissed threats, but even his almost perfectly honed ability to ignore others was being strained, due to the combination of late night events and little sleep which had left him feeling more short-tempered than usual. He automatically clenched his teeth but almost immediately loosened it as he was hit by a complaining ache from his jaw, the result of the action having been repeated once too often. **I've met his type before… authority gets to their heads until their hats hardly fit. He's obviously under-appreciated back home if he gets his kicks from talking to the back of my head… huh, I guess Quistis was right – whoever sent him out here's probably hoping he'll get eaten by a Grat before he can get back. That'd be a blessing for both sides.**

The mental image of that scenario was enough to turn a corner of Squall's mouth up into the faint beginnings of a smirk, although his face had reverted to its usual slate of comfortable hostility by the time he led the Galbadians to the unlatched gates of the Garden. Traffic was still slow, with the Garden only recently beginning to work itself up to its regular level of busy fervour, and it was unlikely that anyone would be on the path long enough to pay heed to a certain Commander and his Galbadian escort. 

"I'll take it from here," Mandagul declared, stepping forward in a manner which reminded Squall of a prancing Mesmerise. Wordlessly, Squall surrendered the lead and fell in behind the General as he passed through the open gates and turned off the well-walked path leading to the sleepy town of Balamb. It came to little surprise to Squall; he had hardly expected the relatively low-key operation to have set up camp in a town which made no bones about their animosity to the Galbadian nation. That led Squall to wonder whether the Galbadians had bothered to moor their sea craft directly into Balamb harbour, or instead chose to disembark on one of the island's solitary beaches. It didn't seem to be an important query, but Squall found himself increasingly latching onto stray thoughts in a bid to detach himself from the undesirable company that he had been laden with…

The thick patch of forest was brilliantly green in the early morning light, and the slight trek though the undergrowth was relatively hindrance-free due to Garden upkeep keeping the vegetation clear. No one spoke, with the silence only broken by the loud crunching of twigs and leaves underfoot as the party made their way through the greenery in single file. **Not very careful, this bunch**, Squall observed with a disapproving eye, **the forest locals would have a field day at the rate this marching band is going. Too bad my weapon has been confiscated, carried by the lout at the back of me with the rest of my gear…** The thought made Squall nervous, and he found himself seriously doubting the experience of the Galbadian party when it came to knowledge of Balamb's bestiary. The other half of him however found itself secretly hoping for a diversion of the monster kind, anything to throw a wrench into the seemingly impeccably planned Galbadian operations. Anything to prove to them… to Rinoa… that armour did have chinks. **You'll never get over this humiliation, will you? You'd better bite down on that pride before you choke on it… lives are depending on it.**

Swallowing hard, Squall pushed aside the branches that hovered at eye level, concentrating on a tiny speck that marred the back of Mandagul's otherwise perfectly starched uniform. The foliage appeared to be thinning, and the feel of the ground beneath Squall's feet was hard packed; evidently, the encampment had to be close judging from the state of the path. As if to confirm his guess, a soft murmur of hushed voices penetrated his hearing, not more than ten feet away. The camouflaged slopes of several erected tents poked above the lowest of the saplings in the way, and with each step, the secluded clearing gradually grew more apparent. Arrayed in horizontal formation across the middle of the grass-strewn area were at least half a dozen Galbadian soldiers, stiff necked and formal in the polished regalia of their home nation. Word of the General's return had obviously spread among them in lieu of his arrival, and the gentle drone of conversation that had disturbed the woodland's quiet ambience had dissipated by the time Mandagul broke through the tree line with much feet stomping and unnecessary ado.

Uncertain whether to follow directly, Squall hesitated just outside the perimeter, although the impatient shove that the Galbadian at his rear applied to his shoulder was enough to convince him otherwise. Stumbling like a gangly fool in front of a line of arrogant dress horses was hardly his idea of a dignified entry, and he felt his face burning as he straightened and strode after the rest of the Galbadians to the centre of the clearing with as much bored repose that he could muster. If the Galbadians found his discomposure amusing, they at least had the discipline not to show it. Instead, their attention simultaneously swivelled to their General who had stationed himself before them, hands casually linked in the small of his back. 

"Where is the girl?" 

Squall snapped out of his sullen reverie and lifted his hooded eyes from the patterns in the dirt. **Selphie****?**** Is she here?** Involuntarily, his heart picked up its pace by several beats as he turned to acknowledge a sudden change in the Galbadian formation. Their helmeted heads betrayed no clear emotion, but Squall could have sworn that a sense of… awkwardness pervaded the men's rigid stances as Mandagul's question pierced the air. 

Frowning, he watched as the Galbadian line rustled with movement, separating its human seams as the soldiers broke their shoulder contact and sidled apart. Concealed behind the line was a small mountain of baggage, assumedly the travel packs of the men, drab and muddy as they were. That was hardly the focus of attention however; of more concern was the unusually bright and gaudy bulk slumped behind the pile, half hidden from view… most could have been forgiven for mistaking it to be a sunny piece of luggage, but for the fact that it was fully capable of respiration, an ability that it was putting on full display by using a put-out sigh. 

"Stand up," Mandagul barked, his coarse voice echoing through the clearing like a rasping squawk. 

If he was expecting an undelayed and obedient reaction, he must have been disappointed. The seconds ticked silently by as the order faded away on the inland breeze, only to be replaced by infuriatingly cheerful birdsong somewhere within the depths of the woodland. Several of the Galbadians, who had stepped to the side in even groups, exchanged what might have been sheepish side glances from beneath the cover of their visors as the tension seemed to screw itself even tighter. 

"You were given specific orders to be prepared for immediate departure," Mandagul said stonily, his voice having gained a somewhat dangerous edge. "Have your commanding seniors made you SeeDs so dependent as to be continuously spoon fed?"

Squall felt his eyes narrow under the veiled insult, but resisted the urge to rise to the bait. It was evident from another disembodied sigh that Selphie couldn't have cared less, and there was still no indication on her part that she had any intention to budge from her current position. Squall mentally shook his head, slightly confused at her behaviour**. ****I don't recall her being so damn obstinate. Not to mention she'd have bitten that bastard's head off with a couple of choice words by now… it doesn't really matter though. I doubt Mandagul really wants to let this mini war drag on for much longer – he's got a mission to complete after all.** Right on cue, the now highly irate General dislodged himself from the front of the Galbadian gathering and marched the few metres between himself and the uncooperative SeeD with wide, threatening strides. The soldiers in his path parted as hastily as a Red Sea, their heads unusually bowed as though not wishing to witness the confrontation about to take place.

With a single hand, Mandagul reached down and grabbed one of Selphie's small shoulders, yanking her to her feet with a smooth motion. Just as quickly, Selphie was seen to stumble, and if not for the General snatching her upper arm she may have tumbled back onto the ground – the unusual display of weakness and reluctance to move on the SeeD's part was suddenly justified by the presence of coarse rope wrapped tightly around her wrists and ankles, rendering her completely immobile. 

**Restraints?**** Was that really necessary?** Astonishment was soon supplanted with indignation and concern as Squall stared at the offending rope cutting into Selphie's skin. **Well, that's the type of backwards brutality we've come to expect from our charming Galbadian cousins. These hicks are going to pay. **

"Kinda hard to be obliging when you've been man-handled and trussed up, don't you think?" Selphie snarled, turning now to blast the Galbadian soldiers with an accusing glare which seemed hot enough to melt a block of butter. They didn't seem to be too proud of themselves from the way they refused to look at her, and it looked liked Selphie wasn't the only one present who wasn't impressed – Mandagul's face had taken on a reddish hue, his eyebrows knotted together in a deepening frown. Without further warning, he swept Selphie aside and marched forcefully among the sheepish Galbadians, railing a string of heated words in a clicking national dialect, but there was no mistaking the sound of curses, even in an unknown speech. The forces shrank back into themselves like cowering dogs, with none daring to object or explain before the General's furious display of temper. Unaffected and still alert, Squall noticed the presence of the two Galbadians at his shoulders had vanished, and pinpointed them on the outskirts of the clustered crowd in the clearing where they had positioned themselves to share in the verbal punishment of their comrades. 

**Time to take advantage of a timely situation…** Escape was the last thing on Squall's mind, what with Selphie's welfare taking precedent, not to mention this seemed like a good breathing space in which to try and quickly exchange information on the mission at hand. With furtive but easy movements, Squall set off in a circular motion around the clot of Galbadians, taking care to not move too close to the edge of the tree line to arouse suspicion. There were no shouts of alarm, with the Galbadians either too preoccupied or unbothered to intercept the Commander; the Galbadian's gear came into view, followed by the slouching form of Selphie sitting morosely upon the trampled grass where Mandagul had let her fall. Squall winced at the sight of her, crusted all over with Grat blood and her winged hair bedraggled into a tangled clump, but before he could formulate a word to get her attention she had already raised her head to look him directly in the eye. Selphie's brilliant emerald glare had far from cooled down, burning even more brightly through the dark grime that smudged her high cheek bones, and her chin formed a stubborn looking point. "They're going to take me away – did they cart you over here to convince me too?"

Squall was slightly taken aback by her bluntness, but ducked to her level regardless. "Have they hurt you? Why did they tie you up?"

"Who cares about that?!" Selphie hissed, her eyes flaring even wider with indignation. "I just want to know whose side you're on – have they told you about how Ellone's involved?"

**Hyne's**** ass, you don't even realise what's at stake for us all if you get hurt… cut me some slack for worrying.** Ignoring the frustration which was threatening to spill over his tongue, Squall focused instead on the question Selphie had posed. "They didn't, but I was told… indirectly. Look, I just need you to cooperate – there're too many lives riding on your conduct and I wish I could go into details, but we both have to go along with Galbadia's program or…"

"Am I hearing this right?" Selphie snorted with a disbelieving curl of her lips. "We're just going to let these Galbadian jerks push us around again? Give me one good reason why I should spill the beans on Ellone…"

It was Squall's turn to cut her off in mid-speech with the brunt of the urgency in his voice. "What do you mean? Has she contacted you?" 

"Well **duh**, isn't that the reason why I'm the hottest pin-up gal on the block?" Selphie retorted, her green eyes rolling in their sockets. 

"Damn it, I don't know…!" Squall exploded as loudly as he dared, causing him to take a wary glance to the right to where Mandagul seemed to be wrapping up his interrogating of the troops. Knowing that it wouldn't be long before visiting hours were over, he turned back towards Selphie's sullen profile, wishing that he had enough time to shake some of the desperation of the situation into her unconvinced self but instead having to resort to the bare facts. "Long story short – we're both going to Esthar. Maybe it has something to do with Ellone, maybe not, but what I do know is that Galbadia is deadly serious and prepared to strike out at a lot of innocent lives if just one of us refuses to budge. Until we find a way to get around it, we'll have to do what they say, so just bear with me when I tell you that there's one hell of a lot at stake if you…"

"And I trust that you respect your senior Commander enough to allow him to convince you out of your mulish ways?" Mandagul's sneering baritone swept across the crouching pair like a rancid wind, causing the two SeeDs to unwittingly jump and simultaneously swivel their heads towards the General's silhouetted bulk. With his hands positioned imperiously upon his hips, his eyes shifted to bore into Selphie's, who was unintimidated enough to offer a challenge of her own in her returning stare. "From what this pathetic bunch of boy scouts have told me, I gather that you've been girlishly difficult in already trying circumstances, not to mention armed with enough childish incentive to contemplate deserting this camp, even when given distinct instructions not to."

"You mean you tried to run away?" Squall hissed discreetly through the corner of his mouth, resisting the instinct to palm his face in his hand.

"Bull shucks!" Selphie chirped loudly with some of her usual spunk, directing her words equally towards Mandagul and her Commander and sticking her chin even further out. "It's not my fault if your little boy band of hard knocks can't handle a l'il ol' Trabia gal like me, but hey, who can blame them for wanting to handle a real cutie at least once in their lives?"

"Selphie, you're not helping matters…" Squall groaned, half closing his eyes in exasperation and shaking his head.

"Enough," Mandagul snapped, far from being amused. "The nonsense stops here, and I won't have this mission being treated in any manner apart from the strict military operation that it is. Although I don't approve of my troops' methods of bringing you to order, considering it nearly breaches the conditions upon which this mission is based, it would appear that your… resistance, so to speak, has justified the decision. Hence Miss Tilmitt, you'll be escorted just as you are on our short trek to our watercraft."

Selphie obviously had some choice words to describe exactly what she thought of that conclusion, but the General had already pivoted to face the Galbadian soldiers behind him who had taken the opportunity to reform their ranks. Barking out several sharp orders, the soldiers were quick to act and were soon scurrying about the clearing dragging down the remaining shelters and sorting out a baggage train. No one initially approached the two out-of-place SeeDs who chose to gaze upon the activity in contemplative silence, with even Selphie at a temporary loss for words.

"I can't walk like this," Selphie suddenly blurted out, staring down helplessly at the rope winding its way around her ankles in a firm knot.

"Or run, at least," Squall said with a perfectly straight face, rubbing at a slight itch above his eyebrow. 

"Can you really blame me for trying?" Selphie sniped, flexing her fingers as though loosening up for a solid uppercut to a certain Commander's jaw. "Here I am being dragged out of bed by some doozy of a nightmare only to have to try and save your floating bum from myself and getting covered in Grat goop in the process and not even getting a chance to have a decent bath before a Galbadian goon squad carts me off on some random road trip to Esthar and you think I don't have a pretty damn good reason for wanting to split??" This was all impressively expelled within a single breath, and rounded up with another double shotgun glare which was definitely not inviting any objection. Fortunately, Squall wasn't in any mood to expend energy on verbal swipes or to question the oddities of Selphie's outburst, dismissing it with a small shake of his head and choosing instead to immerse himself in a moody sort of silence as the encampment gradually came apart before his eyes. 

"You know, you might not be too concerned with what's been going on at my end of the story…" Selphie's voice abruptly penetrated the space between them once again, relentless and determined as it scratched at his steadily rising wall of nonchalance, "… but in case you haven't figured it out, we're not all grumpy fuddy-duddies around here, and I **would** like to know how you've been doing up to this point in time since I…" Selphie suddenly faltered as she realised what she was saying. " …I… errr…"

"… clouted me senseless?" Squall finished untactfully, raising himself on his feet and looking towards the array of Galbadians who had only gotten more organised with passing time. The baggage train was lingering at the rear of the final line of troops, and stragglers were already on their way to their rightful positions within the main body. Departure was at hand and there were only two more essentials that needed to be accounted for; Squall allowed himself to adopt a disarmingly leisurely stance as Mandagul, pacing like a predator at the front of the formation, gestured to several soldiers who immediately broke away and spearheaded towards them. 

"Wha… who told… oh you cheat, you were awake?! I… arrrggh!!! You know I didn't **mean** it…! Are you gonna take it out of my salary now? I…"

Selphie cut her spluttering short as she realised that Squall wasn't listening to a single word and at the same time that two long shadows cut across her vision. Whipping her head upwards, she met the visored gaze of a pair of Galbadians with an impatient flick of her head. "What now, brown cow?" she demanded.   

Ignoring this, one of the Galbadians inclined and made as if to take Selphie's unoffered hands. "Oi! Paws off until the flag's raised!" Selphie yelped in alarm, scooting out of range as best as she could with the heels of her boots. 

"We've been instructed to carry you," the offending Galbadian stated blandly as way of reason, appearing nonplussed by Selphie's rebuff. "Unless you prefer to be dragged, I recommend you start changing your attitude."

"Recommendation noted, and discharged," Selphie huffed, still shying away. "I've had it up to here with all your grubby hands pawing my persona, thankyou very much! I'd… I'd rather hop! Just you see if I don't!" Narrowing her eyes, Selphie's resolve cemented and hardened, for all of the inconvenience of her bravado.

"Problems?" Mandagul's voice drifted their way, carrying a tinge of sarcasm as well as a no-nonsense note. The Galbadian troops had also turned, alerted by Selphie's rather indiscreet complaints. The pair of soldiers standing before Selphie appeared to hesitate, unsure of what type of approach to take in front of their General which would defuse a potentially explosive situation involving a certain uncooperative Yellow Peril. 

All of a sudden, Squall found himself speaking into the awkwardness. "I'll do it."

"Do what?" one of the Galbadian pair asked, looking a bit bewildered.

Closing his eyes momentarily at the slow wit of the soldier, Squall shifted his weight impatiently onto one leg and turned to Selphie. "Will you let me carry you?"

"You?! I mean… do you…" she stammered, completely dumbfounded and wide eyed in surprise. However, with amazing resilience, Selphie's astonished gape instantaneously melted away and was replaced with a triumphant smirk. "You see? All you had to do was **ask**," she drawled at the rejected Galbadians, who appeared confused by the speed at which they were being steadily pushed out of the picture. Selphie now looked positively delighted. "Yes Squall, you may!"

**Ye Gods, I've been turned into a Lady-of-Waiting…** Squall permitted himself to take a lengthy breath, and proceeded to exhale slowly and leisurely. **She's definitely not making this easy… for allies and enemies alike. But from the look of things, if I don't intervene, we'll all be on our death beds by the time this mission gets rolling**. Feeling more composed, Squall stepped forward and extended a gloved hand, pulling Selphie to her feet in a more easy fashion than the General had before – it helped though that Selphie actually **wanted** to get up this time instead of doing her best impression of a sack of spuds. The snubbed Galbadians hastily retreated several steps as Selphie straightened and warned them away with her glower power before Squall tucked a supporting hand in the small of her back, and then collected her lower half behind her knees to sweep her up into his arms.

"Tee hee, you're good at this!" Selphie giggled for Squall's ears only, grandly looping her arms around his neck as she put on a show of a stately noblewoman. His bored expression did not waver, but the telltale indication of a light blush dusting his cheeks gave his inner embarrassment away. "Keep it up and I'll drop you," he whispered with an accompanying scowl, trying to feign indifference.

"If I fall, I'm taking you down with me," Selphie countered, yanking the ruff of Squall's jacket for added effect. "What are you waiting for? Lets get in line!" The Galbadians were still waiting, with more than one fidgeting from the timely delay brought upon them by the two SeeDs. Mandagul however chose to express his irritation more vocally. "Will there be anymore whining, girls and ladies?" he smarmed, his accusing eyes sweeping first over his assembled soldiers and then settling hard upon Squall and Selphie. Suddenly, his sour expression lifted into an even less appealing sardonic grin as he took in the sight of Squall laden with his female burden. "Taking your duty seriously from step one, Commander? At least someone here's not into fun and games." Selphie, who was concentrating hard not to blink under the General's stare, turned back to look at Squall with a quizzical expression, not understanding Mandagul's enigmatic remark. Before she could inquire about it though, the General signalled wordlessly to his troops and all at once they were filing out of the clearing in a neat and orderly line, being swallowed one by one by the rich greenery of the woodland. 

The two Galbadians who had been badly received by Selphie had not joined their fellows, and instead stepped around Squall and pushed him between the shoulder blades. "We'll be bringing up the rear of the line…" one of them explained matter-of-factly, "... so walk."

Obediently, Squall shuffled forward, slightly off balance from the human load that he was carrying but Selphie's frame was small and did not encumber him badly. He felt her arms automatically tighten around his neck as he moved, her face near enough to his own for him to detect a sprinkle of light coloured freckles dappling the bridge of her elegant nose. Selphie's penetrating green eyes were cloaked beneath her lashes, for once not trying to read the story that he carried around in his face… and deep within, Squall felt unusually self conscious as he stepped over the clearing's perimeter and crossed the tree line with the Galbadian pair in close, watchful tow… unusually… aware of Selphie's warm breath as it gently tickled his ear, the lithe curves of her petite form pressing against his attire and the warmth of her skin which he could feel even through the thick leather of his gloves. 

**I haven't been this close to any girl for so long… not since… since…**

He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought, sensing the familiar stab of pain in the recesses of his gut. Unfortunately for Squall his discomfort must have reflected itself through his face or body movements, as Selphie turned those bright eyes upon him and screwed up her mouth as though thinking. "Everything a-okay in there?" she asked, gesturing to some random spot on his forehead.

**No. Nothing's okay. It's been that way for ages, but what would you care? What would everyone care… I can deal with my problems by myself. I was better off before I met you all, before I met… ****her. I can stand on my own feet. I don't need anyone… and I only need ****you to set things right… Esthar's problems, and mine. You'll see. I'm doing what's best for everyone. **

Squall may have been furiously thinking this, but of course did not voice it. The ambiguous grunt which he decided upon was obviously not up to Selphie's standards when it came to replies, but she chose not to press the subject… for about five seconds. "You're worried about Ellone, aren't you?" she whispered, her voice barely detectable over the heavy footsteps of Squall and the Galbadians. "Well don't. If she's been able to communicate with me lately, it means she's okay doesn't it? And even if something's wrong, we'll just head for Esthar, bust Galbadia's chops and be crowned heroes for the day, just like last time. These guys are pushovers for SeeDs like us, right?"

**Dear Hyne, I don't know how or when I can let you out of the dark…** it pained Squall to hear Selphie speak of the situation so naively and the lump of guilt that was weighing on his conscious grew even heavier, but deep down he knew that explaining the finer details was something that he couldn't bring himself to do, or something that he would risk doing. **I can't just tell her why we're en route to Esthar… she'd never stand for it, and then where would that leave us? I said it myself – there're too many lives riding on Selphie to give her reason to leave. I can't just let her jeopardise the mission, even though…**

"No one even asked me whether I wanted to go to Esthar in the first place," Selphie murmured out of the blue. Squall managed to swallow his surprise before it gave him away. **Damn it, am I thinking too loud?** For once not noticing Squall's lapse of composure, Selphie carried on. "I'm just expected to go along with no say… it's kinda annoying being treated like that, y'know?"  

It was getting even harder to prevent the boulder-like proportions of his inner guilt from infecting his expression, but through force of will, Squall pushed it back temporarily before he formulated a reply. "You should be used to it by now. As SeeDs, it comes with the job."

"No talking!" One of the Galbadians snapped; somehow he had picked up on the whispered messages passing between the two SeeDs in front of him despite the crunching of leaves and twigs raised by their movements. Unperturbed, Selphie shifted in Squall's arms and poked her head over the arch of his left shoulder. "Mind your own business!" she rejoined cuttingly, and with steely conviction. Shocked into silence, the soldier did not reply at once, and Selphie bought the opportunity to calmly settle back into her original position against Squall's chest. 

"Yeah, I know, but it just feels different this time," she whispered as though the rude interruption had never occurred. "It feels… personal. Probably because Ellone is involved. That's probably why they made you come along too…" Squall made no move to correct Selphie's account and held his tongue. **Let her believe what she wants… it makes things easier for me in the long run…**

"… which means Quisty's running the Garden now, right? Was that what you were announcing over the intercom?" Squall nodded in a non-committal fashion, focusing on not tripping over any rocks or roots as he waded through a slightly thicker part of the undergrowth. 

"Ehhh… don't worry, I'm just rambling," Selphie ended with a wry smile, and gave Squall a sheepish look. "Either way we're going, and at least I'm getting a free ride!" She elbowed Squall playfully and he couldn't help the corner of his mouth starting to curve into a miniscule smile, although his dark thoughts were enough to dampen any display of humour on his part. 

Suddenly, Selphie was heard to sigh, and the smile on her face seemed to shift in favour of a contented expression. "This feels… nice," she said beneath her breath, so softly that Squall was unsure whether he was supposed to have heard the words, but the fact remained that he had, and he found himself unsure how to respond – or to feel. It didn't matter though, as Selphie surprised him once again by nestling her head upon his shoulder in an almost affectionate fashion; her eyes had closed and at first he thought she was going to catch up on some much needed sleep, but silence and inaction were two things which Selphie did not list in her vocabulary of most commonly comprehended words. "I know we aren't the best of friends…" she said, keeping her voice low and her eyes shut, "… but I've still known you a long time, and I trust you. That's why I'm letting you carry me… and why I'm going to Esthar even though I don't want to."

It was a shock to Squall's system to hear Selphie speak so plaintively without the words 'Festival' and 'Committee' included in the sentence, and he didn't trust himself to say anything meaningful to express his acknowledgment of Selphie's words. His legs felt a lot heavier than he was used to them feeling, and he figured it had something to do with the nervous tension which was squeezing his stomach with iron claws.

**You may end up having to eat those words.**

Now feeling an undesirable sensation which matched his conviction that he was the lowest of all ratbags, Squall stole a look at the cause of the sensation who was currently being cradled in the arbour of his arms. For all the horridness he was experiencing within, Selphie in comparison was a yellow-clad paragon of relaxation, her eyes shuttered, tiny lips slightly parting with each exhalation of air and the spunk which she wore like a mantle now hidden below an aura of restfulness. Her arms were still firmly wrapped around his neck, fingers curled around the nape and lightly tangled in threads of his hair. Squall had lost count of the number of times he'd felt strange and conflicting feelings that morning, and as he gazed down at Selphie's serene face, he knew that it was time to add another notch to the tally. 

**This feels familiar, and I don't know why.** **The way she's… touching me**. In spite of himself he felt himself starting to redden, and he finally found himself able to appreciate the fact that the Galbadians, by walking behind, weren't able to detect the deepening cracks in his wintry visage. The fingers resting upon his skin were warm and dry… inert, but vibrating with life and… and… tenderness?

**Tenderness.**** That touch in the Void…!**

Squall recalled the honeyed warmth that had accompanied that single, but remarkable sensation within the bleak shadows of the screaming void and despite the fact that it was now only a memory, he shuddered in reaction. Something had changed, something had shifted in his ego, and he wasn't sure what… but it wasn't a completely unwelcome alteration. He just wished he knew what it was. **Somehow, you reached me shortly after I fell into the void… but how? And then you disappeared…** Squall shook his head, not any closer to the answers which he was searching for. **What does it all mean?**

He dragged his eyes away from Selphie for a moment to step carefully over a large, protruding root along the path, but his gaze was irresistibly drawn back to the unique combination of girlish charm and hardened military discipline which was etched upon Selphie's face; he looked at her, as though trying to find solutions in the gentle curves and contours of her features. He could feel her, those warm bare fingers twining their lengths through his hair. 

**What was it that you said…?**

He reflected.

**Trust.**** You're doing what you're doing because… you trust me. **

It was tempting to berate himself for what he would have to do at journey's end which would make a mockery of that revelation, but there was more than once facet that he could turn to.

**You may not know it now… but you're trusting me with your life. I won't let that trust down… I'll keep you safe. I'll do what I should have done a long time ago for the ones closest to me. I'll atone**.

Squall could not help the interjection of another inevitable thought.

**… and I'll need to use you to atone as well.**

He knew it was terrible, but he could not help feeling the way that he did and he was feeling too drained to fight the thought away. It was with some relief then that Squall suddenly realised that the trees were thinning, reduced to small clumps rather than forming one connective body of vegetation, and the blue sky above was becoming steadily more visible with each passing step. The increasing level of sunlight upon Selphie's eyelids seemed to stir her awake from her brief doze, and she half opened her eyes only to scrunch them shut again. 

"We're on the plains," Squall informed her before she could lapse back into slumber, "The coastline is near, so you'd better get ready to start moving again."

"Already…?" Selphie groaned, forcing herself to blink several times. With watery eyes, she quickly glanced about her as though half hoping that Squall was in the wrong. "Fudge and fiddlesticks, I hope there's a shower wherever we're headed…" she muttered, sniffing herself disdainfully.

"So do I," Squall said without thinking. That remark seemed to wake Selphie up more efficiently than a splash of cold water, and she narrowed her eyes in mock anger. "Brave words coming from an open sewer with legs," she retorted, pretending to gag on whatever imagined fumes were emanating from her Commander. "I should've hit you harder, you cad… oops." 

"Forget it," Squall said initially. Then on impulse, he made an addition. "I **trust** you had good reason."

He gave her an intentionally knowing look, whereupon Selphie appeared puzzled by his unusual display of good temper – good for Squall anyway. But seeing that he was in earnest, her face slowly lit up with an elated grin. "Wow, I got away with that one pretty easily!" she giggled, leaning back in relief and looking a lot less worried about life. 

Rolling his eyes, Squall updated himself on the surrounding landscape and felt the ground underfoot beginning to slope on a vertical trajectory; the grass was growing sparser, replaced with gritty clots of brown sand and there was a certain cloying moisture on the thermals of the breeze. As if to confirm his guess that the destination had been reached, the main body of Galbadian troops who had consistently stayed in his line of vision now materialised behind a crest, at a standstill upon the shifting sands as the baggage train worked at loading their burdens into the moderately sized sea craft which was beached upon the sea-soaked shore. It appeared to be a well used military-issued vehicle, its sides crusted with uncleaned salty residue and its dark blue coating of paint chipped and peeling in several places, but roomy enough to accommodate each soldier and maybe a couple more. It seemed sturdy enough; Squall had no wish to find himself sinking into the briny sea due to shoddy maritime transportation. He navigated the final dune and trudged across the fine white sand, feet sinking as the fragile grains collapsed under his and Selphie's combined weight. He finally halted a few meters away from the soldier furthest from the back of the group; no one seemed to be concerned enough to show the SeeDs some form of recognition, and the Galbadian soldiers at their back silently stopped with them, still guarding the rear.

Conversation had dried up between Squall and Selphie upon arrival, and even as Squall watched the last of the bags being passed along the baggage line, he could feel the coarse fraying rope around Selphie's wrists scraping against the bare skin of his neck; her fingers had come alive and were fidgeting with restlessness.

"Do you want me to put you down now?" Squall asked, interpreting Selphie's unease as an indication that she needed to stretch her limbs. 

She seemed lost in thought, and it took a few seconds for her to realise that Squall had directed a question her way. "Oh! Um, sure," she said vaguely, her blank stare flicking away from the direction of the inner mainland and landing on Squall's face. "Your arms must be tired by now… you should have a break." 

**Now it's my turn to ask what's going on in your head**… Selphie seemed unusually preoccupied all of a sudden, but first things first – taking care not to relax the support of his left hand in the small of her back, Squall carefully lowered Selphie onto the sand feet first, and only then shifted his remaining hand to her shoulder to steady her on the uneven surface. She took his support gratefully, her legs trembling with the effects of sluggish circulation. Lowering his arms, Squall felt Selphie's warmth that had spread through his garments linger, and then gradually dissipate on the ocean's winds leaving something like an alien emptiness where it used to be. He wasn't sure whether to feel bothered by it, and so opted not to dwell on it.

In that short space of time, the slam of the cover of the vehicle's luggage carrier rang through the air as metal collided against metal, followed by more orders from Mandagul whereupon the first of the troops proceeded along the gangway, ducking out of sight as they entered the bowels of the watercraft. With departure closer at hand, Selphie appeared to grow even more restive as she fiddled nervously with a loose button on the front of her dress, and shifted from foot to foot in a miniature hole her movements had already drilled into the loose sand.

"Are you afraid?" Squall asked straight out, feeling a twinge of worry at the prospect of Selphie having second thoughts about the mission so close to its commencement. 

Selphie's head snapped up with affront. "Why should I be?" she said with some disbelief, although the anxious crease in her brow ceased to iron itself out. She did not hold Squall's questioning gaze, her eyes subtly flickering to the side as though attempting to look behind her.

"Or have you left something behind?" Squall tried again. He checked the Galbadian troops with a glance; the third and fourth lines were boarding, leaving only two more to go. Selphie's eyes were also trained upon them and she looked to hesitate, as though deciding to attempt speech where she would originally have settled for silence.

"I didn't say goodbye," Selphie finally sighed, head bowed with disappointment. She scuffed at the sand with the toe of her boot, kicking up a golden cloud around her feet. "I don't know how long we'll be gone for, or if we'll… well…"

Squall nodded, indicating that the sentence did not have to be completed. He knew the feeling well enough to be able to finish it himself.

**… or if we'll even make it back. **

No words of reassurance fought for space on the tip of Squall's tongue, and he found himself drawing a blank in the wake of Selphie's confession. **And you know the exact reason why, don't you Leonhart? Her fears aren't unfounded. When she enters Esthar, she just might never leave. But she doesn't know that. She doesn't need to know. Not now, not now… what matters is she gets there, that's all that matters, ****you have to get her there…**

"All that matters…" Squall murmured, a soft echo of his internal determination. 

"What?" Selphie asked, not quite catching his words and confusing them with a message intended for her.

Squall blinked several times as though rousing himself from the thralls of a trance and he cleared his throat uncomfortably, realising from Selphie's wide-eyed look that she was expecting him to speak. 

"It's probably better not to… say goodbye," Squall muttered, recovering quickly, while at the same time noting that the last line of troops was bunching up around the gangplank. "It just seems too final." 

Before Selphie could reply, General Mandagul, who had remained on the beach to supervise the boarding of his division, now gave an impatient call their way. The vessel's engine could be heard ever so audibly as it hummed gently underneath the rolling waves while the crew within its cabin gave the rudders an experimental turn to loosen the gears, sending a sheet of white foam to the surface where it bubbled away along the currents. Wordlessly, Squall stooped and tugged at the knot constricting Selphie's ankles. The rope loosened its grip in his hand and he carelessly flung it away into a nearby dune, upon which he gave Selphie a small push as he himself started forward. 

"I won't say goodbye then…" Selphie suddenly whispered, even as Mandagul came within possible earshot and even as the crunching of sand was replaced with the hollow beat of her heels against the gangplank wood. "I'm going to come back, damn it…" She paused in the middle of her ascent, seized by an additional thought which saw her contemplative frown turn upwards into a jovial grin. "… and I'm gonna throw the best festival yet, right Squall?! As of now, you've been made an honourable Committee member, after myself of course!"

"Get on board, and be quiet," Mandagul barked from where he stood on the sand.

"Oh, you're just jealous 'cause you're too old to have fun anymore," Selphie quipped with a spark of her former self, skipping the last few steps towards the door of the vessel with her bound hands bouncing ahead of her. On impulse, she turned one last time before she ducked through the opening. "Wanna be on the Committee? I've got an old classics band number all planned out and I could do with a good tuba player…"

**"Get on!!"**

Close behind, clopping along the stretch of timber above the rumbling surf, Squall noted Selphie's mischievous giggle and watched with a considerable amount of relief as she finally entered the watercraft without any further fuss. **This is it – from here on in, there'll be no retreating… and no room for error. Let's hope we're as up to the task as everybody thinks we are… ******

The crescendo of the breaking waves seemed to roar an affirmation, throwing up a fine spray of droplets as the beaches of Balamb conveyed their own goodbyes. Wiping the salty moisture clinging to his sleeves, Squall returned the gesture with a grim set of his mouth and took the final steps of his boarding with a down-turned stare. Somehow, he didn't fully trust himself not to look back and commit the serenity to memory. The knowledge of what was festering under the face of that placidity was already insulting, but knowing that he was to play a part in the maintenance of the façade was shaming every bone in his body.

**Hyne**** forgive me…**

The clang of the door behind his ear rang through the air in a flat reply to his silent plea. 

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Whew! I broke my previous word count record with this chapter, which is 11.5 thousand words long… @___@ I'm glad I was finally able to share it with you guys and gals, and I hope you all liked it. ^^ This was my first opportunity to experiment with interaction between Squall and Selphie and I'm open to any scenarios that you want to see occur between them in the following chapters, so let me know if there's something you'd like to read and I'll see if I can incorporate it in the story! :D *Gets her pen and paper ready*

And without further ado, a few thankyous are in order… ^^

Coca-Cola: Funny you should mention that actually… you can all expect some GF action in the next chapter! *Never leave home without one!* ^~ And I had no plans to make them speak on a human level, so no problems there. ^^ 

CTHSKI – LOL, now that's an interesting scenario that I'd love to include! :D I'll be definitely making them stop off at a town somewhere along the way, so that'd be a good excuse… ;) *evil laughter*

Sayeesa – I thanked you before in an e-mail but it doesn't mean I can't thank you again for that quality review! ^__^ I'll be keeping all of your suggestions in mind, and you can definitely expect a more perky Selphie in the next chapters! *Sets to work*

Zero-Vision – G'day dude, I just did my own falling-back-into-Fanfiction impression so don't feel bad about the absence! ^__^;; *Just took the word absence to all new heights* X__X Lol, the way you described Squall made me think of a dad giving away his daughter at a wedding… :D and you're right, he's definitely going to have a blast when he finally fesses up. XD I'll definitely be looking forward to writing that part! *Plots evilly*

Elcyion – thankyou so much for putting up with my rambling and having a read, and I hope you'll also like what I have planned for part 2! ^__^ *Gives you jellybeans*

Garnet – Hello again dear! :D As you can see, my update has arrived at last, albeit several months late… @___@ *hits self* I probably won't be getting any more punctual, but I can at least try… ^^;; anyhoo, welcome back, and hooray for the not-so-common Squalfies! ^__^

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And that's all for now, folks! :D An update probably won't be for another little while because I've got exams and a whole lotta work to deal with all the way up to the middle of June, but I'll probably be taking time out in between to work on the next chapter. ^^ Take care everybody, and in the words of Arnie, "Arl be bak!" XD

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COMING UP NEXT: Things take a dramatic turn as an innocent sea trip turns into an all out brawl fest – but how on earth could everything go wrong so quickly? Expect a bit of a dip into action, although I won't be changing the genres. ^^ I'll see you there! 


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